Metal and Words
by AletheiaFelinea
Summary: Tortuga is just made for crime stories, isn't it? Jack Sparrow's friend has been found dead. Jack has reasons to believe he'll be next, if he doesn't find out the 'who & why'. Action set a few months before CotBP.
1. Chapter 1

Written in Polish in 2010-2013. Translated also by me in 2012-2014, and for the first time posted on dA and LJ (FF doesn't allow me insert the direct link, but you can find the link to my Fic Masterlist on my profile. I reccommend rather reading this story on AO3 or LJ, if you want additional materials - the map, photos, links for historical resources and such). The translation was betaed by compassrose7577 (LJ).  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> Disney's, last I checked. *sigh*

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><p>The sun rose, lighting the bay's waters. The morning breeze filled sails set in the roads, waking the waves splashing against wooden keels and stone docks. The wind advanced amidst narrow streets of Tortuga, vanishing there quickly and ignominiously. The infamous atmosphere of the town met one like a lighthouse, announcing the island's presence by a good half mile, by favourable (or rather, malevolent) wind. Some hoarse cock at the top of its lungs, and with the rasped throat, strove to best the screeches of gulls, oblivious to no one appreciated its efforts in a town which never slept. The day promised to be sweltering and bustling… as every day.<p>

However, the subject which dominated that day's buzz wasn't an everyday one. A rumour raced from tongue to tongue, spreading between the port and houses, passed amid fishermen, strumpets and tramps, carried as fleas on rats, whispered in lanes, shouted in taverns, louder and louder. "Under the old pier, they found Rusty Hans Snoggerson!" it was proclaimed. "Rusty Hans stiff as a dried herrin' and with an extra smile pretty carved on the throat!" By the fifth tavern, Rusty Hans had already, "blinkers goggled, teeth bared an' all shags stickin' up, strike me dead if I cram, I've seen by myself!"

The version carried onwards, that is "…and yet in hand he had a shred of rag, surely from the togs of the one who dispatched 'im for the eternal watch! And he was missin' shoes! Hans, that is to say…" already went right past Jack Sparrow harbored snugly in the sixth tavern. To tell the truth, he would have believed the shoes bit - mostly because Rusty Hans had rarely been seen with them. But for Jack, the scanter version was sufficient. He sighed heavily and, with a certain effort, unstuck himself from a sticky table at which dawn had seen him slumbering. This world's going to the dogs, he decided. It's damn harder and harder for a honest pirate to steal for his daily rum, and yet the free piratey Brethren slaughters one another as the East India Trading Company shareholders on the eve of the election to Court.

Jack would have drank the deceased's health, if he had something to drink. Nobody can say Jack Sparrow forgets his creditors! And Tortuga's mud as his witness, every time he had spotted Rusty Hans, he had recalled that he owed him fourteen shillings and three mugs at _Faithful Bride_ since last spring. He recalled it usually in time to dodge into a lane or behind the nearest cote. Why disturb old Hans with the sight of him? A decent mate, he was, and Jack had wished him well, so he spared him the unpleasantness of encounters with the thin and shabby debtor.

"It's Skiver Ed and Ugly Wessley. 'S their job," someone next to Jack muttered, cutting through his gloomy thoughts. The pirate glanced at the expert on the night doings of Tortuga's merry folk and hastily made a mental review of the possible state of his liabilities in this case. The memory reported this time, exceptionally, Jack's record as clean and pure as seawater, somewhere very far from this port. The prospective candidate for a creditor was stretching himself and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. A moment earlier, he had unstuck himself from this same table, a far easier task for him, since he was completely bald. And besides, gaptoothed, hare-lipped, broken-nosed, web-eyed, with a long, matted beard and a peg leg, in which woodworms not only lived, but probably bequeathed and mortgaged, so it was no wonder that, in the face of such a walking assemblage of nicks hints, the public surrendered and just called him Joe Morgan.

Jack couldn't, though wouldn't mind, running up a debt with Joe, for the simple reason that Joe also wouldn't mind running up a debt with Jack. So yesternight, after an unexpected meeting en route from one tavern to another, and ascertaining that neither had more than an ear to lend, they spent the night luring chaps willing to buy a round for no more than tall tales and promises of everlasting friendship, or reckless enough to be enticed with cards. The pack had been Joe's, the deft hands Jack's, and the stakes guests' at their table, at least until the moment they jangled from pouches to the tabletop. In private, Jack deemed it a fair deal. All of Tortuga knew that anyone who sat down to cards with Jack Sparrow rose broke, but amused as never in a life. Many came back, some with another pouch instead of a pistol in hand.

The pirate grinned on this reminiscence. He leaned back on a rickety stool and looked around the tavern, as if the owner of the crumbling walls, sooty ceiling, six beaten-up tables and sturdy counter. In the interior, designed in the traditional style _le Tortuése baroque_, that is 'drink, pay and get out', the last component was the most solid object within sight, and the most capacious, with just enough room underneath to fit the bartender and as many bottles as he might catch, when the clientele cheers up, and mugs, hats and bullets began to fly. It wasn't Sally McDonnell's first day in Tortuga nor her first business, so she could write guides for the innkeeper trade. That is, if Sally could write. That morning, she stood at the bar, scrutinizing the obscure room, assessing which was better to sweep out, and which to leave. Or rather who, because the morning tidying rarely included more than clients from under and atop of tables. She rolled her eyes when her survey come across the brilliant grin of Captain Sparrow, to which he returned an even wider one. Then he turned toward Joe.

"And why, pray tell, just Skiver an' Ugly, eh?" Jack said. "If you can see wha's goin' in port from behin' this table and with your nose in a mug, then mebbe you'll also detec' that galleon heavy wif silver, the one hurled on a reef by that hurricane month ago? A shallow there, they say, so now you're a clairvoyant, I'll help you draw ou' the silver. For a half of the output an' if you ask pretty enough".

Morgan sent him a glare from above his beard, which he tried to entangle a bit. "Not on me second sight, but you seem a might blind. As I've been sayin', too much rum, Jackie! Knaves'n'kings were confusin' for you by night's end, so mebbe you're not quite awake yet. Or actually you're struck blind for good." Joe jabbed air behind him with his thumb, pointing to the opposite side of the room.

"There isn' any 'too much' for me," Jack protested reflexively, while looking in the indicated direction. He wasn't alone. Many glances were cast furtively or outrightly towards the corner enclosing the least rickety and relatively cleanest table. The corner was officially called "the alcove", for special - that is jingling with silver and gold - guests, usually captains celebrating successful raids. A curtain of worn velvet, now drawn back, separated it from the rest of the space. Three chairs had backrests, the fourth padded upholstery, the middle of the table adorned by a weighty bronze candlestick, firmly nailed to the tabletop, of course, as Jack had tested long ago. Sally knew really her trade and, more importantly, her clients.

That morning, Wessley lounged on one of the chairs. Having just pushed away his plate, he got down to the dignified picking of his teeth. Wessley, or as he used to introduce himself, Edward Wessley Viscount of Westingmore, did everything in a dignified manner, including flea hunting. In private, Jack was of the opinion that his viscountship could be quite true, and in the way "truth" was used in the world distant from Caribbean waters: under the eternal fog-rainy sky and an omnipresent bureaucracy, demanding to certify knighthoods by documents weighty with regal seals. Wessley had aristocratically smooth features, with the cold beauty of a marble statue and probably also a brain of it. In Jack's opinion, the Viscount of Westingmore's hat - always studiously matched to a satin coat, brocade vest and batiste shirt, festooned with lace - could outwit its owner. There was plenty to win from him, but Jack would rather propose to Sally McDonnell than touch the cards with Wessley. It would be very hard to _not_ outplay him, and but one way to amuse him: look frightened. There were, however, many ways to incline him to seize the weapon: outplay him at cards, or call him "Ugly" within earshot, the nick being difficult to resist, in view of all the Viscount's spotless finery.

The Viscount's companion, however, was decidedly not so spotless. At the very moment, he half-laid, hat lowered over his eyes, on the next chair, the padded one. It was hard to say who first nicknamed Skiver Ed, for no one was willing to confess. Anyway, the name clung as tar to a deck. In general, the most noticeable of Skiver Ed was that he was distinguished from Ugly Wessley not only in disgust for perfumes and taste for clothing more common between self-respecting vagabonds, but in every way. Almost everything amused him, although no one had heard his laugh. Yet he smirked quite often, especially when hearing something about himself. The smirk, however, tended to put a chill in bones of those watching, in spite of the fact that no one had seen him with a weapon in hand, though he always carried an unspecified blade at his side. From a distance and secretly, some sneered, claiming it was surely no more than an empty scabbard with a protruding hilt. Even if that was true, that Skiver Ed never touched a skiver of any kind, he always had one at hand, in the shiny figure of Ugly Wessley. One look at this duet was to see that Skiver Ed was the sole owner and user of a brain which worked for both of them. In light of that, he was mockingly bestowed with Wessley's first name, what he, surprisingly, accepted.

In general, one look at Skiver and Ugly was enough to see many things. That was why Jack Sparrow never relied upon one look or the first thought, regarding the pair. 'Many' means often 'too little' and 'not the most important'.

"So?" he asked, out of pure spite, for he knew well what Morgan had meant. It was plainly etched on every face in the tavern, most plainly on those who hurried away the instant Skiver's hat raised slightly.

Morgan rolled his eyes. "Cash on them," he explained slowly and patiently as if speaking to a colonial clerk. "And don' you see how they look like?"

"How?"

"As if they…! Come on, uh! …somebody!"

"As usual, then…"

"You're stupid, Jack." Morgan lost his patience. "As usual, when one... uh, you know, somebody! …then one tries to look innocent, and when can't, then gets out of people's sight at least. For this, uh, suspicions. To not promp… not prop…not bring to mind."

"Didn' know you're so practised in the business…" Jack opened his eyes wide with exaggerated wonder. "Then it looks like they aren't 'ere at all, and at the table our 'allucinations are sittin', or someone other uh-ed old Hans, after all."

"Nothin' looks, doesn' look at all! Don' cut in, I've not finished yet! If they wouldn' sit, then the all'd suspec' them! Cause they disappeared! So they're just sittin' on purpose and look as if they, uh…! Crafty, eh?" the genius of deduction and the expert on a criminal mind finished, very satisfied.

"Crafty. Like a cat in fron' of a corked mouse hole," Jack assured with a straight face. Not waiting for the 'praise's' essence to sink in Joe, he added: "But apparen'ly you're not the only one not fooled, since everyone suspects them. They'd better come straight off, instead of wasting the time an' contrive these craftinesses".

Morgan looked suspiciously at Jack's grin, beaming with 24-carat sincerity, but said nothing. Instead, he rummaged in his pockets, pulled out a pipe, and rummaged in pockets again. Unable to find tobacco, he pocketed the pipe back and grunted at last: "An' it's not my business, anyway. An' it ain't yours, neither."

"Sure," Jack agreed. "Wha's the use of suspicions? If Sally was to throw out anyone with a mark on the record, this place would be as deserted as the cemetery at a gravedigger's burial."

Morgan glanced at him askance and fidgeted uneasily.

"Eh, why anyone…?" he muttered. "You know, a brawl happens, an' there's a crush, and your knife gets tangled, an' then turns out it's in someone's guts… And anyway, when a some cocky sod offends a decent man, kick up a fuss, spills his rum…"

"Carries gold in pockets…"

"… carries gold… what?" Morgan blinked and turned red. "Aw heck, it was no longer of use to 'im, so only a fool'd leave it! Someone could steal it otherwise! It's one thing to attend the useless, an' quite another thing to butcher somebody on purpose!"

"You didn' say you're givin' up the piracy trade and assumin' the habit." Jack grinned cheerfully. "Only mind to not mistake contemplatin' friars with converting ones, or else you'll cut and run back to the pirate brethren, if you're so sick of gore".

Morgan began to get purple. "To roll out guns and hois' the Roger in the pirate way and in broad daylight, also not the same what…!"

"What?"

Morgan cast a reflexive glance toward the alcove and said, barely audible: "By night. An' from the behind."

"And for gold?" muttered Jack. He also glanced, at Wessley's plate, with a vague feeling that breakfast was a great invention of mankind.

Morgan mumbled something vaguely acquiescent and rummaged again in the folds of his clothing, probably in search of non-existent tobacco. For a while, Jack observed these manipulations from the corner of his eye, and then pulled out his own pipe. Empty since time immemorial and cold as Davy Jones' chest, he turned it in his fingers, studiously inspecting the smoothed bowl, and asked quietly: "An' by you, how much could Hans have in 'is pockets, then?"

"He'd 'ave to have these pockets first," Joe snorted. Then he suddenly blinked again, opened his mouth, shut it, glanced once more at the alcove, and back at Jack.

"Uh-huh," Jack nodded, leaning on the wall and biting at the pipe's stem. Rusty Hans Snoggerson, who, besides being a true redhead, always had worn the same tattered breeches and holey shirt. He was completed by an even more tattered straw hat and a small knife dangling on the end of a string supporting his breeches. If Hans had something more, and he rarely did, then he kept it on his bosom. Even for the least demanding robber, and in the port's dimness, he couldn't have looked promising. Skiver and Ugly weren't little demanding.

"He hadn' to 'ave on 'im…" Morgan muttered.

"Then I haven' heard about a more crafty method yet, to knoc' off somebody who hides gold, in order to find the hidin' place," snorted Jack.

"He'd could jus' hide it in the port." Morgan perked up. "And mebbe somebody followed…!"

He stopped and drooped at Jack's meaningful gaze. In a place tread every day by hundreds of feet, seen by hundreds of eyes and changed after every storm, only the newer wharves being paved, the old pier fringed with sandy beaches, such a hoard would have been excellently hidden, beyond any reach. Especially the owner's.

Jack could have told Morgan to not bother with inquiries. Wherever and whatever hoards Rusty Hans had possessed, he would have nothing to put in them. If someone was to look for Jack Sparrow in every tavern, then they plainly are so desperate that wind undoubtedly whistled through their pockets. But Jack said nothing. As Joe Morgan had said himself, it's not Joe Morgan's business.

The pirate bit the stem of his pipe again and gazed thoughtfully on the blackened wood of the tabletop before him. Actually… Nah. Joe Morgan was right: there wasn't much need to put knives in motion, and not every knife gets stuck in someone's guts by the will of the one who wields it, or in throat, for that matter. Neither is every knife drawn because of gold, and for sure not for the gold of Hans' skin. Jack would stake everything what jingled which passed through his hands last night on that. Rusty Hans had obviously tread on somebody's toes, and Tortuga toes were very sensitive, knives sharp and flashing readily. One had to have flashed for old Hans, who had never tread on anybody's toes, so far as Jack remembered. The pirate shifted his eyes to look at the slowly emptying tavern.

Actually…

He pocketed the pipe and looked around for his hat. Discovering he was sitting on it, he sprang to his feet, wiped the worn leather with his sleeve, and put the crumpled tricorn on the place more entitled to it. Slightly surprised by this sudden burst of haste, Morgan didn't try to stop Jack as he rushed to the door. Last night, they had settled accounts on the spot, and Joe, to Jack's regret, could calculate fine. Sparrow dashed onto the street, making a great point to no look in the direction of Skiver and Ugly. The careful not-looking assured him that they paid him no attention.

Actually, from who had he heard lately, that Rusty Hans Snoggerson had been looking for him?


	2. Chapter 2

Jack Sparrow stepped over the tavern's threshold, squinting in sunlight. It turned out the sun was already in its zenith. He set off down a dusty street, maneuvering amidst the crowd, sending glittering smiles towards giggling lasses, dodging trundling carts, and straining his ears.

Streets were still buzzing with the rumor that Rusty Hans was already the late Rusty Hans. The essence of it was nothing strange on an island where every day and night someone had an appointment with a fist or iron. The stranger was to hear it regarding a man who never brawled or tempted robbers. Even on Tortuga, however, no matter how exciting the news, the gut demands food, which wouldn't come by itself. So the clatter of uncommon excitement slowly turned into the clatter of common life.

"Slack?! You call it slack, you scrub?!" Tom O'Malley bellowed thunderously, brandishing the indicted loaf. "Your mother never baked better! Twopence and nothing less! An' be glad I'm not adding for the offence to a honest trader!"

"Sure, slack, and looks like you threw sand in place of salt!" the 'scrub' lodging the complaint yelled back, defiantly sticking his thin chest out. "Or you took ash for flour! Not a pence it's worth! Broken one! You hear, folks?!"

Tom flushed purple, sputtered and turned in search of a solid club. Finding it in its usual place beside the door, he turned to discover the would-be client had vanished already, having resigned both the purchase and the complaint.

"What's goin' on with this good island?" The sigh came from somewhere behind, accompanied by a faint chiming. Startled, Tom whirled around.

"No respec' at all for hard workin', and they're slaughterin' each other in the port, and even gulls are more and more impudent." Jack Sparrow, leant against the wall near the windowsill which served as the counter, rolled his eyes skyward and shook his head with a jangling, clucking indignantly like a pastor at a pulpit.

Tom relaxed a bit, but wielded the club in the supposed direction of the annoying seeker of sand, in an empty… that is, a full loaf, of course, excellent loaf!

"Well?! What they're lacking?!" He brandished the loaf again, towards Jack this time. "What, not good enough?!"

"Perfect," Jack assured hastily, moving beyond the club's reach. _Well, if one comes ashore after three months_, he casted a glance at trays of grayish bread.

"Is it true, wha' they're talkin' on Hans?" he asked, leaning a bit closer to the counter again. "Where to look for the gospel, if not at you, Tom," he added quickly.

O'Malley flushed proudly. After all, that Sparrow is a decent chap, even if not the brightest.

"Aye," he said dignifiedly. "There's always the best bread and the best news from me. Mummeh," he recalled suddenly.

Sparrow nodded eagerly and waited, showing with eyes like saucers that Tom 'The Best Firm' O'Malley has his undivided attention. Tom crossed his hairy paws on a prominent belly covered with a grubby apron, and took a breath.

"Aye, so it is, Rusty Hans is lying dead… was lying," he corrected. "Fishers took him right away, to make short work with the burial and, well…" he broke off with some confusion, finding that he had no more to tell. "Mamiyah," he finished. Having heard once that Italians were famous as extraordinary bakers, he decided that in business, in the face of lacking in quality (which, of course, he would never admit), success would come through a proper publicity. From then on, he had been trying to pass as an Italian, in spite of an Irish accent which could crush rocks. Cracks in this concept stemmed from the fact it hadn't occurred to him to change his name. Even if he had, the only Italian he knew was _Mamma mia!_, which from his mouth sounded different every time.

Sparrow miraculously managed to gape even wider at O'Malley's shocking tale.

"Any moment we all, honest and peace lovin', will get butchered in beds…!" he moaned. "An' some even in own ones," he added in sepulchral voice. Then he pushed off the wall and hurriedly walked down the street, calling back to the baker: "I'm goin' to lock doors, if I find any. I'll follow the example of such a clever guy like you, Tom." He ducked around the corner, not waiting for O'Malley to count his loaves.

Once past the third corner, Jack slowed. He had heard from the baker no more than expected. Tom O'Malley, admittedly, used to believe anything he was told, but he also was unable to invent, which rendered him a certain source of news, indeed. Not overly surprising anyway, this time. The surrounding of the old pier was an old-timer fisherman's place, who cared scrupulously for its tidiness, although not it alone. A corpse wasn't a rare find on the town's street, and merchants, traders and innkeepers didn't want upon their threshold anything which might repel the clientele. There was a small cemetery on a hill behind town, but since a tombstone costs, and no one shovels for free, the biggest and the most popular cemetery of Tortuga was its surrounding waters, fishermen the cheapest morticians. Sometimes, if a dead man had a family, they would wait until someone could find Padre Mateo, drag him out of a tavern, and tell him which a cap to don, for the Padre, being a man of enterprise, used to be also Pastor Matt or Rabbi Matityahu, when the need called. It was said he once managed to be Imam Mattà. But since Rusty Hans had never been rich in family or money, why wait?

Cautiously munching a loaf and spitting an occasional pebble, Jack wandered narrow streets and alleys. He methodically looked into stables, pigsties and cowsheds, especially the ones adjacent to taverns, hence, the majority. Goats, donkeys, and piglets replied with curious or impassive gazes, hens fled with alarmed clucking…

Ah-ha! In a wooden shed, entitled to the name 'pigsty' through its permanent inhabitant, being a well, for Tortuga standards, fatten up hog, was the source of the most versatile, if not the most valid information, on the island. It was fast sleeping, with its head rested comfortably on the said hog, which didn't protest, sleeping as well. Jack looked around for a bucket and a trough.

SPLASH

"Wheeee…! Phoo! Ugh… What?"

"Welcome to a wonderful new day, Mr. Gibbs." Jack beamed, substituting for the sun, which failed to reach the shed's interior at that hour.

Joshamee Gibbs blinked and wiped the water from his eyes.

"Are you off your head, Jack?! Don' you know tha's bad luck to wake a man when he's—!"

"Worse bad luck is to counter a dead man's will," the Captain cut in. "You told me that Rusty Hans was looking for me?"

"Hans…?" Gibbs gaped at Jack as if he had wakened him to inquire as to his opinion on the house of Habsburg's marital politics. "Aye, he was…"

"Then he's not anymore. Would be difficult from the bay's floor and wif his throat cut."

"Throa…" Gibbs was struck speechless. He crossed himself hastily and regained his voice, though not necessarily his presence of mind. "Mother of… Hans?!"

"Hans," Jack said patiently. "Rusty. Cut. This night. You claimed you'd been talkin' wif him?"

The question seemed to take Gibbs' speech once more, petrified for good, by all appearances. Jack rolled his eyes and looked around for the abandoned bucket. At this sight, Gibbs' self-preservation instincts kicked in. He blinked again, wiped the last of the water from his face, and sat heavily on an upended trough, while Jack patiently waited. The hog, unimpressed by the shower, grunted in his sleep and kept blissful dreaming of hoggy dreams. Gibbs rubbed his tousled whiskers and patted at his clothes.

"Dead?" he asked again, rather hopelessly.

"Dead," said Jack, who was beginning to regret that he had put the bucket aside.

Gibbs sighed, and then realised what he was searching for. He looked in his breast-pocket, surprised to find the flask still was there. He uncorked it. Surprise of surprises, something still sloshed.

"Aye, I was talkin' to him." He sighed again. "Not further than yesternight, so I was." The sloshing in the flask faded in between sighs and sentences.

"An' he'd asked for me, you mentioned, right?" Jack was trying to not look at the flask. "Wait, yesternight? Yesternight too?"

"An' how not! He was scourin' all Tortuga fer you and every time when he ran across me, he asked if I'd seen you, an' to tell you, when I meet you. That he's seekin', that is. And I tell him that I've just passed you by, there, on the street. An' he stares at me, eyes like plates, turns back an' almost loses his legs… so hard he ran after you. I haven' seen him in such a panic yet…"

The Captain nodded. True, Gibbs had told what he had been told to tell. Just enough to keep Jack beware. He frowned suddenly. "In a panic? Why? And where it was?"

"An' how I'm to know why? At _Faithful Bride_. That is, I know why afterwards, when he said that he lost it, at the Bride too.

"What?! Gibbs, talk in turn and decently at last, not as if you're confessin' in front of a court martial!"

"Just talkin'! All the time I've been talkin' you! Two days ago, he ran across me and asked after you. So I told you that when I met you. Next day, I see you near the _Bride_, go inside, Hans comes in right after me and asks after you again. An' he babbles something, all tremblin', that he has to find you. To read him, and to read him, repeat' still. Then clearly he hadn't found you after that, when he'd jumped out of the _Bride_, cause he dragged himself again, at the evening. He sits down, clinging to a mug and whines that all's failed, that he lost it somewhere. So I push another mug to him, seein' the fellow's in a burnin' need of consolation, the third mug for me, cause it's always better to console together… and can't remember what was from then," Gibbs finished, a bit hesitantly.

Jack ceased to wonder how Hans had found himself in the fisher's port. One should rather wonder that, as a result of the 'consolation', he only had set out for a wander along the beaches, for he as well could have commit something more mad, like visit other taverns, and try to carry away Sally McDonnell's candlestick, table and all. Besides that, everything became more and more vague, instead of clearer.

Jack gritted his teeth and his hands, one on the cutlass' pommel and the other on his belt buckle, unsure as to whether grab Gibbs and shake him properly or just snatch the flask. Jack felt an increasingly urgent need of its contents.

"What. To. Read." he growled. "And. What. Did. He. Lose."

Gibbs glanced anxiously at Jack's left hand on the cutlass. "I dunno what, he didn' tell that. Oh," he recalled, "he told that he remits your debt, if only you read it to him. An' he jumped out on the street, before I managed to ask more. An' when I saw him at the evenin' again, I forced my way to him, with that first mug, for to, well…" Gibbs break off, disconcerted suddenly. "Well, one can always see," he restarted boldly, "if I'd be of use, I can read many a thing too, an' maybe a some bottle would be there for it, but nothin' doing, turned out, then we only got down to tippling… together…"

Gibbs stopped at noticing the Captain stood as motionless as a statue on a duke's tombstone, staring without a sound. The gaze disturbingly brought a snake to Gibbs' mind, or even worse, one of his former captains, stalking towards someone dozing on a watch. He cautiously turned to look behind him, but found nothing more than a wooden wall, and then turned back.

"Jack…?" he asked tentatively.

The Captain whirled around, his coat skirts flaring and silver jangling. Gibbs, almost whipped in his nose by the sash's torn end, jerked involuntary.

"Jack, where are you goin'…!" he called.

"Drink." The firm reply came from around the corner which the pirate had already turned.

Gibbs nodded. "Ah."


	3. Chapter 3

Aubert Verlaine, more known as Tidy Bertie, absentmindedly rearranged four chipped mugs and wiped the counter. Then he moved the mugs back and wiped them too. Then he moved the mugs again and– A splinter from the countertop pierced the rag and then his hand. Bertie cursed, threw the rag down, and sucked his finger. Well? Hadn't he always said that nothing good comes from too much of tidying? He grabbed the nearest mug, which had been wiped more in the last hour than in the course of its hard-working career at _Faithful Bride_, and filled it generously from a bottle kept under the countertop. From over the mug, he cast a furtive glance toward the reason of his uneasiness.

Jack Sparrow, paying for a bottle without seeking to bargain? It was unheard-of, but well, maybe he's ill. But Jack Sparrow sitting with that bottle, untouched, for an hour, and in silence, as if he had given his tongue together with his money? What's the matter with him and could it be contagious? And the worst of all, what was that he saw in that wall?

The innkeeper turned from the figure cowered in the tavern's darkest corner and looked suspiciously at the wall, almost expecting to see a hole drilled there by the pirate's fixed gaze.

Jack had ceased to notice the sooty plaster in the first minute at the table. Actually, he had hardly noticed Bertie handing him the bottle, or even the bottle itself. One insistent thought haunted him, namely that now he would have willingly treated Rusty Hans to thirty mugs. What came over him, he wondered, to moor at Sally McDonnell's _Golden Cockerel_? Ah, right, he and Joe Morgan ran across each other just next to Sally's door…

A more sober thought jumped out of the emptiness in Jack's head and boldly, in the face of the still uncorked bottle, waved to him.

_Once you saw him, you'd flee even if there were no more taverns in the all Tortuga!_ it sneered maliciously.

And behind it, the third thought sneaked up, so bitter he winced. _You kept fleeing hardly listening to Gibbs, not asking what did Hans want._

Jack shuddered, reached for the bottle, and…came to a standstill. Rusty Hans Snoggerson, who never vexed no one, which amongst the good pirate brethren was truly an art itself, Rusty Hans Snoggerson, who associated paper mostly with pistol wadding, and letters with sides of ships, the same Rusty Hans Snoggerson had suddenly ran about Tortuga in an urgent reading need, and immediately after stuck himself on someone's sharp iron? Jack tapped fingers on the tabletop by the bottle and again fixed his gaze on the wall.

Behind the counter, Bertie's hands began to tremble. If someone told him that he would be on the verge of kicking out a client who pays...

Jack didn't see the wall again, for thoughts swarmed now. A written paper being bad for health was not so rare of a thing. The Captain had seen in his life enough bills, testimonies and judicial sentences to not doubt it. But what a death comes from reading? From boredom perhaps, from some scholarly treatise, but what boredom puts a blade to one's throat? He frowned. Reading, or more precisely, a wish to reading, or even more precisely, a wish to ask for reading.

He felt a sudden chill run down his spine. What had Hans carried, that gave him a scare, even though he didn't know its content? And what content had made him worthy of a knife? And who, besides Gibbs, had heard to whom Hans wanted to show that content? Jack frozen in mid-breath and swept the tavern with a suspicious glance, feeling like a jellyfish on a beach: paralysed, noticeable and surrounded by plenty of sharp beaks.

He slid out from behind the table, trying to look everywhere at once. He stopped, turned back, grabbed the bottle, and thrust it under his coat. Then he walked to the door.

Bertie followed him with his eyes for a moment. Then he carefully looked around and edged towards the wall, so evidently trying to not draw attention that half of the tavern looked at him.

Meanwhile, at a table by the door, a discussion was carried on, concerning the preponderance of Captain Jeunét's pinnace over Captain Van Houten's old fluyt.

"So what of that _Mélusine_ is smaller, eh?! But, she is swift like a dolphin!" Gervais, commonly called L'Épingle, was hot-tempered, and at the moment, almost hot-red. "What old Van Houten would get out of that he could load into that tub of his 'til it spills out of the embrasures, if a fleeced merchant could manage to reach a port an' come back wif Navies! An' they'll get hold of that rottin' whale in the same place yet!"

"No Navies, if he'll dispatch the lamb to the sea bed after fleecing it." A supporter of Van Houten and 'the good, old, Flemish craft' chortled over his mug. "Seen what _Poseidon_ carries, stickin' out from these embrasures? An' _Mélusine_? If Jeunét put two long nines on the bow, you bet it would outweigh her stern 'til the rudder wouldn' reach water. For kids, such a toy, to play in a puddle, not to set out for pirate lanes!"

"An' for Van Houten, neither to chase, nor to shoot, cause if it won' tear these rusted barrels open, they'll fall through that rottin' planking soon. On _Poseidon_, rats already wage wars against woodworms, for lodgings." L'Épingle snaped back and, by his usual custom, emphasized his argument clanging his _L'Épingle_ in its scabbard. The effect was quite impressive, or at least loud, for the old rapier was endowed with a truly bounteous guard, making it, according to mockers, an excellent crab trap.

Like the rustle of a snake's scales startles a bird, the blade's rasp startled Jack Sparrow walking nearby, with his head already full of thoughts about sharp metal. Acting on impulse, he dashed through the door into the dazzling sunshine, tripped over something about his legs and tumbled into the street's dust. Something creaked nearby and spilled with a harsh rattle. An outraged scream broke with a choked gasp.

The landing was surprisingly soft. Jack realised why, when he spat out not only his own hair, shoved the hat off his eyes, and discovered himself in the position for which half of Tortuga's good citizens would have given their right arm. Well, maybe left leg. Actually, the risk could be quite literal too, he reflected at the sight of Mandy Morrell's face, gathering the resemblance of a stormy cloud. He jumped off in time for her knee, impeded by the tangled skirt, to miss its goal. Jack, not wasting time to rise, desperately tried to withdraw. He didn't get far, the _Bride_'s wall stopping him.

A muffled snigger made him look up. Anamaria, a fishing net sliding off her shoulder, and hands to her mouth, tried to stifle a chuckle. No good for a fisher, to laugh over the spread-eagled and furious owner of the best fish stall on the island.

The passing lasses, heavily armed with their crusts of powder and heaps of lace, didn't try to hide their loud giggle. Laughs came also from other stalls in the market-place in front of the tavern. All Tortuga was of opinion that on the day Mandy Morrell decided to switch to the most popular female profession on the island, the price of fish would drop to the sea floor, and the price of female charms would out-grow palm trees. However, the male half of Tortuga admitted sadly that one could sooner expect an ice-bound bay and snow on the beach. In the meantime, the female half would more gladly welcome that ice and snow, than the fiery-haired and fiery-tempered Irishwoman as a rival. Fortunately or not, such a turn of events was very improbable. Mandy Morrell took pride in her freshest fish and her most lavish beauty in town, claiming that salted meat and a painted wench are faked as well. It was no wonder that the cold war of skirts went on, to delight of anything breeched on the island, including, as Jack suspected, to the secret delight of Anamaria.

Mandy lifted up on her elbows, glanced at the strumpets, and shot daggers at Jack. "Hang y'all, scoundrels an' pests, you'd begin to mind your way then," she hissed.

Pointing out gaps in logic to an angry woman wasn't a wise thing, in Jack's opinion, especially to an angry woman with a cleaver at hand. He shielded himself with a shining grin.

"How to mind one's way, when your beauty dazzles more than the sun, Mandy!" He laid his hand on his heart and discreetly slid it lower to the bottle. By Fortune's whim, it was unharmed.

Mandy sent him the look usually reserved for those trying to palm off two-day old lobsters, rolled her eyes, and looked at the shambles that was once her stall. She was reluctant to admit, even to herself, that she had a soft spot for the owner of the brightest smile in Tortuga. She knew them all too well, the motley rabble, loafers and braggarts, to a man. Every one of these ragamuffins had boasted that he had once, or would someday, have his own ship that he would be the scare of sea lanes, that "you'll be calling me Captain, you'll see!" Only one of them, contrary to all evidence, had introduced himself as Captain Jack Sparrow, with a rakish gleam in his eye, challenging anyone who dared to breathe a word of his mythical ship being more of mist than solid wood. When others babbled about fat merchants, he told of golden palaces of Chinese sultans, turtles as big as isles, and isles where trees yielded jewels…

Mandy shook off her musings. Never mind the smile, she told herself, scattered oysters won't gather back on their own. _Still, he well deserves a good flatfish smack through this matted shag of his. Nah, a waste of a fish for such—_

Her indecision was interrupted by movement under her apron. She looked down and sprang to her feet.

"Crabs! Why you're sittin', catch 'em before they'll scurry off! Now!"

Jack, who rather expected that flatfish, obediently rushed to cut off the retreat of a bunch of barnacles determined to take the advantage gained from a toppled bucket. Anamaria watched for a moment, then crouched, to set an upended basket upright, and began to gather the oysters. Mandy hastily looked around for the bucket.

"I wonder what that slob, Bertie, gives y'all to drink. You're suddenly runnin' about, as if scorpions instead of cockroaches crawled in this den of his," she snarled. "An' now my stall somehow stands in everyone's way! Rusty Hans didn' look where he'd been goin' too, and what end he came to, eh? Good for nothin', all of you!"

Jack reserved the suggestion that she might move the stall a bit farther from the tavern's door. Knowing Mandy, the _Bride_ would move sooner.

The bucket was at last found around the corner of the nearest alley. The crabs revealed in their escape more enthusiasm than orientation, running mostly back where they came from, instead down the alley. Jack threw a few of runaways into the bucket, reached for another and froze suddenly. He lifted his head. "Hans…?"

Mandy paused in counting of her grudges against all of Tortuga's scamps. "Just what I told you! He jumps yesterday, just like you, from this plague-stricken hovel." She shook her fist at the _Bride_. "He runs into my crates, tumbles over wif them… As soon as he picked himself up, he shouts somethin' that he didn' mean it, that he's sorry, and he got lost before I managed to whack him wif anythin', an' it was due to him well…" She huffed angrily.

"An' you won' manage anymore," a murmur came from aside.

Jack glanced at suddenly gloomy Anamaria. "Really…?" He drew his hand across his throat.

She nodded briefly, without raising her eyes from the oysters. "I've seen."

Jack didn't inquire further. Anamaria's "I've seen" was worth more than "strike me dead if I cram!" of most of 'well-informed' in Tortuga. Contrary to them, she clearly had no inclination to go into more colorful details, judging by the mute concentration she paid to stowing oysters in the wide basket.

Jack blinked and frowned.

The flat bottom of the much-worn basket was laid with a cloth of a fair fabric with an odd, intricate pattern. What a peddler does so well as to put printed calico under living goods?

"Ow!" Jack shook an absentmindedly held crab from his fingers. The crab tried to scamper away, but Jack re-snatched it from the safer side, the one without pincers. He glanced from the corner of his eye into the basket once more, this time noticing the strangely regular margins of the lining. Not a cloth, a sheet. And not calico, paper.

Jack bit his lip, then reached for another crab. "Count more for educated oysters, Mandy?" he asked casually.

Mandy dragged a desperately struggling fugitive from between the barrels, and looked back at the basket, which Anamaria had neatly filled. "That? Hans must o' dropped it, when he was wallowin' all over my crates," she said tartly. "Just fit in the basket, so it came in useful at least, to mend what he'd ruined. Surely he'd nicked it somewhere, mebbe to line that leaky thatch that had passed for a hat."

Jack picked up the nearest oyster, ostentatiously examined it and threw it into the basket. "Oh, so that's why they're so blue today," he announced blithely.

Mandy looked at him, suddenly frozen. "What?"

"Oysters. From ink. Ink's black, and when dissolved in seawater it stains blue. An' your oysters, Mandy, straight from the bay, they are! You couldn' find more fresh ones on the all Tortuga, nay, all Caribbean! Everyone knows it! So it's no wonder they're leakin' still…" The pirate blabbed merrily, all the while so busy with crab hunting, he didn't notice Mandy, who began to look as if, for the first time, she considered moving away from the _Bride_. She had heard many things at that door, but this? What had Bertie been serving them? Whatever it was, she felt as if she had drank it, too. She eyed uncertainly the pile of oysters at her feet. Perhaps there was some bluish gleam on shells?

Meanwhile, Jack grew more and more fervent. "Yet no one ever got poisoned wif ink, or else they wouldn' keep up wif hirin' clerks, eh? If lookin' suspicious, that's nothin' yet, not at all! Can be absolutely innocent, what's not so innocently lookin', I can testify to it wif my own humble person, that the unjust world uses to judge unfairly an' precipitately, not lookin' duly enough, not even waitin' for the explanation…"

Anamaria glanced at Mandy, whose eyes were going bigger and bigger. Crabs were taking the opportunity to flee from her reach, the brighter ones avoiding the pirate.

"Take it away!"

"An' they're even quite pretty, though not everyone would be clever enough an' appreciated… What…?" Jack presented the very image of bewilderment incarnate, staring at the somewhat crumpled paper sheet, which Mandy had snatched out of the basket and pushed into his hands.

"Take it away, the faster the better! An' the farther the better!"

"But what I'm…" the pirate protested weakly, yet rising from his knees.

"Throw it away! Bury it! Burn! Now, get out!" Mandy waved her hands, as if her stall was endangered by a raid of hungry gulls.

"M' not an errand-boy." Captain Jack Sparrow straightened indignantly.

Mandy, her resemblance to a furious tigress going beyond hair colour, growled and looked around, in a quandary as to which was more in her reach, a rag, a broom, or a clever.

Jack hastily sprang back. "Right, I am. I could be. Just once. Only for you, Mandy, by way of exception. Um, well, so I'll just…" he broke off, turned back, and ran into the maze of alleys.

He stopped behind one of the port warehouses, in the quiet shelter of crates and barrels. He looked around warily, then he folded the paper and shoved it into the right– the left pocket of his coat, he reflected, at the last moment. He cautiously pulled the right open and peeped in.

"See?" he said. "Don' mess wif me." He snatched his fingers back. Then he set off for Tortuga's northern skirts, where pots used to dry on fences.

xxx

Some time later, the sun hid behind the horizon, the last rays igniting sparks on the waves washing a beach. It was distant enough from town and the port that the only sounds heard were the sea's low hum, rustle of palm leaves tousled by the wind, and quiet crackle of a small bonfire. The mutinous crab was poaching in the widow McCullough's best brass kettle, while Jack Sparrow sat against a palm tree, staring gloomily at the sheet of paper. The twilight was falling fast. On the darkening sky, the crescent moon was as narrow as the smile of a shark lurking amongst reefs. The scarce glow of little flames barely reached the kettle's brim, and Jack didn't risk putting the paper near the fire. All he could see on the sheet was the vague pattern of writing. The Captain rose his eyes and let them run to the first emerging stars.

Everyone knew Hans Snoggerson, though no one knew what wind had brought him to the warm waters and tropical isles of the New World. What difference did it make? If someone's skin proved him not native, then the skin's owner evidently had found old Europe too stuffy. Those who felt oppressed in God-fearing, servile colonies, or had fled plantations, where one lived to work, instead of the other way around, Tortuga collected in a steady flow.

Hans was collected after a certain planter had found him in a haystack, happily sleeping off a rendez-vous with a bottle, when he was supposed to been tending the horses. That was the end of Hans' career as a coachman. The infuriated employer fired him, with revilement and promises of numerous unpleasantnesses, if he was ever spot him in the vicinity of the estate again.

In the pirate brethren's unanimous opinion, it was the worst decision in that planter's life, cause Hans Snoggerson, who barely coped with the English tongue and having no Spanish nor French, compensated with an extraordinary command of Horse. At least, anyone who happened to see Hans whisper into hirsute ears that tamed the wildest stallions would swear so. Everything four-legged and neighing had obediently followed him. The hardest and most vicious of pack mules wandering Cuba, Hispaniola and Jamaica mountain tracks softened to Hans like Arcadian lambs, to their owners' astonishment, providing, that is, if the owners had chanced to see it.

Most often, however, they hadn't. Having discovered himself an ex-groom, Hans had found his way to the island of outcasts and tramps, by fate's usual turn. Perhaps it could be said, against fate, for he hadn't followed the usual path, which most often lead over pirate decks to a scaffold. Admittedly, this last prospect had remained open, at least until yesterday. Nevertheless, it seemed as if he had decided that, if the noose had been meant for him, then he would come by it in his own way. As it turned out, one could throw Hans out of stable, but no one could manage to throw the stable out of Hans. On the isles, where one lived on water, by water, and for water, where if one didn't own boat, then one strived for a hammock and a bowl on someone else's, Hans Snoggerson had become a rustler. And, contrary to the mocking of deckhands proudly calling themselves sea-dogs, he had been doing quite well. His method of selling French horses, mules and donkeys to Spaniards, and after moving the beasts to the other half of Hispaniola, selling Spanish ones to the French, had produced a profit sufficient for his daily bread. The mystery remained, however, as to how Hans could reach an agreement with said Spaniards on the one hand, and Frenchmen on the other. Apparently the language of the horse market was universal, especially when assisted by silver's jangle.

Nevertheless, the gains of these horse ventures would have been richer and allowed for better garb than patched breeches, if Hans had been as indiscriminate with merchants, as he had his prey. Unfortunately, Hans had looked more closely into eyes of a prospect than his purse, looking to see if he was too eager with a whip. The result had been Snoggerson's business, simple at the stage of plundering, and very complicated in the selling, had been cursed by ex-owners and would-be purchasers on all Hispaniola, and derided by pirates, robbers, and thieves in the all Caribbean. No one asked for horses' opinion.

Still, even if grudges born in a stable or a horse market could chase Hans all the way to Tortuga, a scribbled paper in Hans' hand concurred like a Navy boy in a pirate tavern.

Jack gloomily eyed the half-emptied bottle. The bonfire's flames shone faintly through the dim glass. It was an accurate image of Jack's present state of mind. Had Hans' murderer wanted to shut his mouth? Sometimes a written paper can make more noise than a man. Had the killer known it? Having killed, had he ransacked Hans' paltry belongings in search of the sheet? And the question most burning to Jack was had the killer gone for a drink with the feeling of a job well done, or did he consider the job not yet done at all? Jack would give great deal to know what the murderer was doing at that moment, especially whether he was cruising streets, asking about Hans' recent doings and recent chats.

Knowledge is dangerous, they say. Captain Jack Sparrow agreed, absolutely. There was great risk in knowledge which one lacked. And the most trappy was knowledge which one lacked, but others thought he did had.

He drained the bottle and flung it far away, into dark waves. He doubted if Hans had known what he died for. But, damn it, if someone was to try to dispatch Jack Sparrow to Hell, they would discover that they were going there together. And they would give some explanations before.

* * *

><p><strong>Notes:<strong>

L'Épingle (French) – The Pin


	4. Chapter 4

Shreds of seaweed, the ebb's leftover, glistened in the sunshine. Gulls screeched, circling over the wet beach, diving at unlucky starfishes and crabs wandering amidst driftwood, washed bone white by briny waves.

One crab went astray beyond the mud to almost the thicket line, where wind-tossed palm leaves cast wavering shadows on the heated, dry sand. It passed the charred remnants of a small campfire and approached a heap of dark rags, which lightly rose and fell with the rhythm of soft snoring.

The crab stopped before a row of silver buttons running the length of the faded fabric's edge. It examined its find intently, first with the left eyestalk, then the right. Finally, it extended its pincers and tugged at the most enticingly gleaming button. The jagged edges grated against the metal and slipped off. Determined, the crab reached again.

The snoring broke. The cloth and buttons raised, revealing a nose and one half-open eye. The crab, intrigued, put forward both of his eyestalks. The eye slowly focused on them… and widened rapidly.

"Whooaaa! Ouch…"

Jack Sparrow winced painfully and rubbed his skull, the victim of a sudden collision with a palm trunk. He looked at the monster, still standing on its stilty limbs next to the coat's edge. The monster returned the look and waved its pincers. Now it didn't look so big, Jack noticed. He tried to untangle at least one leg from the coat.

Something creaked up above, and the next moment a ripe coconut thumped onto the sand, barely missing the crab, to Jack's regret. He followed the hurriedly scampering creature with his eyes, then he recalled Rusty Hans' yesterday burial and flinched. No _frutti di mare_ for some time. A long time. He untangled one leg, drew his knife from the boot, and got down to peeling the coir off the coconut.

xxx

The endlessly returning surf hummed and splashed, bringing scraps of old wood and crushed shells on the beach, and then taking them back. The sound corresponded well with the painful buzz under Jack's skull as he stared at the written sheet, spread on a patch of dry sand. It was the only thing he was sure of – that the sheet was written. That, and that the writing was utterly incomprehensible even before yesterday's sunset.

The paper was fine, smooth and thick, cream-coloured, unblemished. Under a touch, one could almost feel the coolness of gold, for such a paper would have to be paid in gold, to write about golden sums. Still, no matter how fine it was, it shouldn't have escaped intact from its encounter with Mandy's oysters, yet it did, hardly stained, and fresh as from a paper mill.

Jack lifted the sheet to the sun, and examined it closely. He folded a corner, then tore it off.

The paper was oddly stiff, too stiff for its thickness. There were traces of the old folding, but it folded with difficulty in new places. Today, in the bright sunlight, a slight sheen was visible on its surface. Now sun-warmed, it began to emit a barely perceptible, bitter smell. Jack sniffed over the all sheet, then the torn piece, crumpled in his fingers. He wrinkled his nose and abandoned the intention to lick it.

The sheet had been saturated with something. Whoever had written it, hadn't intend to keep it in the safe shelter of a study or library. Apparently, the strange substance had been intended to protect the writing against any ordeals which might befall it. Verily, it had to be excellent, since the sheet had survived the sojourn under Hans' shirt and the oysters' company almost unscathed. The lines on the pale surface were distinct and precise. And utterly unintelligible. Mocking.

Jack huffed, piqued, sending a glare from which should have singed the paper, if it had any sense of decency. It hadn't. It continued its shameless presentation of its mysterious content.

Jack ground his teeth and stared at the faraway horizon. Where's the rum when it's needed?

Alas, no bottle miraculously sprout from the sand. He reluctantly wrenched his eyes away from the far, blue temptation and came back to the annoying enigma under his nose. In its way, it was tempting too. Oddly, it looked strange and familiar as well, and that in and of itself, was the most annoying.

He could swear that he held the product of a royal chancellery, providing this chancellery was set with a task of properly impressing foreign diplomats, that the best scribe got utterly drunk and bet he could cram onto a single sheet more than the all other scribes together, and that he got down to it before he sobered up. However, it didn't look like drunken calligraphy. It looked… just different.

The lines flowed and twisted, broadened then narrowed to a hair's breadth, crossed and joined, split again, turned back… Together they made a tangled thick, and yet kept some order. One could make out condensed rows, like verses, sprouting single tendrils reaching across empty spaces. Here and there, recognizable fragments of familiar letters stood out, yet not in any recognizable entirety. All this flickered on the verge of understanding, yet evaded one's mind. Narrow gaps seemed to divide words, bigger elements stood out like majuscules, and at the very top there was a tremendous whirl of tangled curves. It could have appeared to be the main initial, had it not been placed on the right side. There, it ended the line instead of starting it.

At the right side.

Jack Sparrow tilted his head like his feathery namesake, but with the intense concentration of a sneaking cat. Then he slowly moved his gaze down the page, searching for a less dense place in the tangle of lines. A gap in a 'verse', then a short row of 'letters' drawn with a single stroke of the pen, and then another gap. The 'word' was a series of tiny loops and aslant sticks, one ellipse, and one sinuous line, everything wreathed in tiny coils and whorls misleading an eye. On the second glance, it looked like a familiar alley, where houses were switched back to front, facades to courtyards. Sticks, an ellipse, a sinusoid. Perhaps the way lead through the courtyards, then?

Jack took his eyes from the paper and looked at the sand. He drew 's', hesitated for a moment, and draw the same shape, turned left. Then he drew a painstakingly calligraphed 'n' with slanting lines and looped ends, and next to it the same shape again, reversed. He looked back at the sheet and found the place again. Indeed, it seemed more recognizable once one knew how to look. He tried to read right to left.

_son_

Was it English? Spanish? French? Was it 'sound'? Or 'his'? 'Her'? 'Are'?

Too little.

He eyed the florid maze of letters. One had to fish them out sign by sign from between meandering ornaments, unraveling the text like a dense fabric, reeling in the essence like the weft off the warp. He felt dizzy at the mere thought. There had to be some other way. If only the reversed writing could be reversed once more…

Jack looked at the other side of the sheet. It was unwritten. He touched the surface, trying to feel dents made by the pen, but the paper was too thick, or the mysterious scribe's hand been to light. Jack raised the sheet to the sun, but it remained opaque. He looked around, in a quandary, then leaped to his feet and ran up to the surf licking the sand. He dipped the sheet in the water, though not really in hope for success. Indeed, water didn't soak through the paper, didn't make it transparent, only dripped down like oil from a metal plate. Water swirling around his boot tops, Jack bit his lip, eyes fixed on falling droplets.

He walked back to his coat abandoned on the sand and the remains of the fire. He picked up a half of the emptied coconut, went into the surf and scooped a shellful of water. Holding it still, he glanced at the sky's reflection and brought the sheet over the shell. He squinted, trying to catch sight of the reflected writing, but didn't see a single letter, the margin being as broad as the shell. Under his breath, Jack sent a volley of colorful regards aimed at the wasteful scribe, fleetingly envied crabs their stalky eyes, and tried to raise the sheet while tilting the shell. A few letters flickered on the surface near the shell's brim, Jack moved it a bit more, and more… The water trickled down his fingers, the reflection shattered. He hissed in anger, and flung the shell aside.

He rummaged through his pockets, produced a shilling, examined it, and pocketed it. Then he pulled out a few tarnished pences, half of a Portugal ten reis coin, some mother-of-pearl baubles, a single dice of polished wood, a broken bone button, a shark tooth… Everything was too small, too dim, too rough.

He went back to camp and picked up the kettle. At a distance, its brass shined, but a closer inspection revealed scratches from the long-year scrupulous scouring. He put it back, and looked around. Finally, his gaze settled on his cutlass, abandoned next to his coat.

He grabbed it quickly. The blade rasped against the scabbard's locket and shined… or rather it was supposed to shine. Jack examined a few revealed inches of the blade, then pulled it entirely out. Last summer had been rainy, and the guard, to tell the truth, had earned some dents of recent, some a year ago. Maybe year and a half. All right, for at least two years it hadn't been leakproof. Actually, it was wonder the blade hadn't been yet reduced to a handful of rusty dust. Brought into the light, the blade looked like a guilty conscience, presenting the tarnished flat, spotted with black speckles. Jack tried to swab it, first with a tuft of coconut coir, then with the end of his sash. The only result was a new tear in the latter. Despondent, he threw the cutlass on the sand.

Then, struck by a thought, he reached for the knife hidden in his boot. In Jack's firm opinion, the best use for a weapon was to not. Therefore, the cutlass had spent most of its time at its owner side, successfully unused. No wonder it had somewhat lost its glamour. Yet the knife was another matter. Its life was quite hard-working, even if spent crushing of crab shells and penetrating locks, instead of threatening human skin. There had been no time to grow rusty.

Jack turned the knife in fingers, examining it as if seeing it for the first time. The blade was narrow and not very long, for the knife, many years ago and many miles away, had begun its career as a gentleman's dagger. Considering the size of an average lock, it was its shape which had won it's the place in a pirate boot top and a job in the pirate trade.

Alas, not dealing with a lock or shell, the knife failed this time. Jack scowled at the dim shadows, barely looming on the flat of the blade when brought to the paper. He sighed and stared sadly at the sand. It was all for nothing. Even if he tried to polish the blade to a glassy shine, the reflection would be still misshapen. He needed something wider and flatter.

Glassy shine… Glass…

He looked at the sea, recalling the bottle he had thrown into waves last evening, but gave up the thought immediately. The bottle's curved surface would be hardly better than the blade.

He absentmindedly raked the sand with the knife, drawing circles.

Glass…

Suddenly he fixed his gaze at the sand, and drew a circle again. Then he grinned.

He sprang to his feet, tucked away the knife, and pocketed the paper. He picked up his coat, hurriedly brushed sand off it, and pulled it on. Then he snatched up his cutlass and tricorn, and set a quick pace down the beach. He stopped only for a moment, to tear a blooming branch from a bougainvillea twined around a palm trunk.


	5. Chapter 5

Scarlett opened the door and stepped over—

"Oh!"

She would have stepped over the threshold, if it hadn't been filled by Jack Sparrow, standing there with an air of women hearts', and not only hearts', conqueror. Involuntary, Scarlett felt a bit conquered already.

"Milady! Nature's blossom shows barely a meagre reflec… er, that is, an equivalent of your beauty!" The pirate snatched off his hat and bent in a dashing bow. A bunch of scarlet flowers appeared out of the blue before Scarlett. Jack, tricorn against his heart and bougainvillea in his outstretched hand, straightened and flashed a grin.

"Allow me to declare my deepest conviction that a flower so resplendent like you, Milady, shouldn't wilt for the scarcity of admiration. Being of tender heart, as the lushest flowers of the women kind could assure you… that is, flowers hardly daring to dream of being equal to you, Milady, of course! So, being of tender heart, I've come to offer you my eager services and the admiration of the most genuine assay. No need to thanks, Milady," he said magnanimously.

The blooming branch, all the time in front of the stunned 'Milady', trembled in a draught which gusted through the narrow, dusky passage on the upper floor of _Faithful Bride_.

Scarlett, who had been lost since 'equivalent', suddenly realized that she must look silly with wide eyes and dropped jaw. So she giggled professionally, trying to hide her confusion. Actually, what did great ladies use to do with flowers gifted to them? At any rate, they probably accepted…

It was not long until evening yet, but she meant to start on streets earlier this day, in urgent need of money. The week was coming its end, and Tidy Bertie already had begun to "Ahem" upon seeing her. Scarlett was aware that if it wasn't a successful night, her room would fall to someone… well, solvent. Yet apparently money just came on its own.

Wait a minute… She cast a suspicious glance at the pirate's grin, shining above the flowers. His eyes shined as well. Surely he didn't think that a smile and a handful of smooth, if terribly long words was enough, did he? Not again.

Jack felt her scrutinizing look deep in his pockets. He straightened further and tried to present like the owner of a heavy pouch. Admittedly he hadn't great experience in owning, at least in last months… well, years… but in presentation he was an expert. He widened his grin hopefully.

xxx

Some time later, Scarlett suspiciously examined a shilling, and threw it on a stack of others. Then she counted the coins for the third time. They looked to be pretty good silver, but there had to be something wrong with them, she was sure of that. What else could be the reason why her customer had vanished faster than rum from mugs downstairs?

She still couldn't decide if she should feel affronted by this.

xxx

Gravel, thrown from under abruptly halting boots, rattled against a large wooden pole protruding from the ground. Jack held onto the weathered wood, bent double and for a good while tried to save his lungs from bursting. At last, breath regained, he straightened and looked around.

Well, perhaps he had overdone the getaway… that is, the tactical retreat. He stood on a desolate beach, abandoned years ago, when Tortuga had moved its center towards the new docks, like a heavily turning leviathan. An irregular row of wooden poles, driven deep into the ground, was all that remained of the old pier, even older than the one called "the old" today. The majority of sturdy logs was no longer washed by even the highest tides, and some of them were slowly disappearing under sand and greenery. The land was winning against the sea, and people had contributed to it, dividing the coast with the barrier on which the sea current shed its sandy load.

There were thoughts Jack shared with no one, one of them being: when will the old pier follow the fate of the oldest one? When will the time come that loaded fluits and galleons will no longer reach the stone wharfs of the increasingly shallow port? When he had seen Tortuga for the first time, the flow had reached a dozen pilings further than today. Yet no one treated a vagabond, with a captain's compass but without a ship, to a mug for a tale about the tide's reachings, and so he told of far away isles, where sand was of gold and diamond dust, and didn't inundate ports.

As far as the eye could see, the beach was deserted. There were even fewer gulls than above more populous parts of the island. A few small sails loomed on the horizon, and some hundred yards back towards town, the hatches of the nearest huts were visible between palm trees. Just in case, Jack went around the piling and sat on the ground, leaning against the wood broad enough to shield him. Then he took out the paper and unfolded it. Finally he drew a mirror from his coat. He examined the small oval plate framed in filigree brass. He grinned at the sight of his own face, and squinted when the silver-plate glass, tilted, shined as if he held a sliver of the sun's disc.

Scarlett always claimed that the mirror was a love token from a Burgundian marquis who had happened to visit Tortuga in his adventurous voyages. Her competitors in the trade peddled a less romantic version: Burgundian or not, he was certainly not marquise, but Captain Armand Le Verre, who had been fortunate to encounter a Venetian merchant with a hold full of fragile wealth, and – having relieved the merchant of the worry of such a delicate fortune – soon squandered it. Captain Le Verre couldn't affirm nor deny either version, since more than a year hence, he had danced for the last time on the end of a Spanish noose. One way or another, the shiny piece from the far and luxurious world was envied in Tortuga by all women of any profession and all wenches of any sex. Scarlett always kept her treasure hidden in her bodice, so 'borrowing' it required a method other than searching the room in the owner's absence. The method more risky, yet definitely more pleasing. Jack smiled dreamily, then looked at the paper and brought the tilted mirror to the end of the first line.

Which turned out to be the beginning, indeed. The mirror showed an intricate tangle of lines, forming a decorative initial. The letters following it were still barely discernible in the ravel of ornaments. One long word made up the first line.

_Monseigneur._

Ah, so whoever the author of the mysterious message was, its recipient was French. Moving the mirror, Jack kept reading.

_Nous esperons… In hope the letter will find Your Excellency in good health, we send our regards and wishes of good fortune. Allow us to say that we invariably desire to contribute to the latter, expecting the equally invariable favour of Your Excellency, in the spirit of the old truth that the Fortune favours allied, and a shared fortune becomes multiplied, bearing fruit of the mutual profit._

'Nous'? Who, besides monarchs, said 'we' about oneself? Or was the scribe's hand the tool of a group?

_As a sign of our good will and evidence of our word's weight as well as our powers, we enclose a small gift to these words, reckoning that it will meet Your Excellency's approbate, as a famous connoisseur in this matter, and possibly, as we dare to suppose, will match expectations._

Jack reflexively looked under the sheet. A gift? Worthy of a monseigneur's attention? Where it could mislay…

_Our reverence assured, we should mention it is dependent on Your Excellency whether this reverence will be lasting like an imperishable castle embed on the rock of unbetrayed trust, or rather volatile like chaff on the wind stirred by inconstancy…_

Well, well, carrots ran out, time for a stick. There was as much reverence, Jack thought, as mercy in the last words of a death sentence read at a gallows.

_…inconstancy which, however, we are not afraid of. Our certainty is based on three reasons. The person of Your Excellency is the most excellent guarantor for two of them, since we are deeply convinced of Your Excellency's fine merits, that is the noble reliability, and an unerring flair to catch so profitable opportunity. Therefore, we trust that inconstancy is as implausible for such respectable and reasonable personage as the Governor's office fitting._

Governor's? Jack frowned and moved the mirror back, reading once more. No mistake, it said _Gouverneur-général_.

_The third reason we secure by ourselves, its manifold forms at our service, and if the need calls, we will not hesitate in using them. Your Excellency's enlightened mind undoubtedly realises that where the brute power of metal fails, there a subtle word can prevail, sinking through the mightiest ramparts to reach the one who deemed himself safe._

Not a stick, but more like something sharp or red-hot. Metal… Jack gazed at the sea before him, his skin prickling under the shirt cuff. Words? One letter sometimes is enough.

_Thus let our gift, a living evidence of what we are capable to achieve with the jangling metal, become the seal of agreement and a memento which, unable to speech, reminds about the gifters' power on words, lest this power would have to be unleashed._

Jack was increasingly curious as to whether the recipient had received this highly peculiar letter, and if so, what colours he had turned at reading it.

_Circumspection checks our quill, therefore this letter is but our envoy's credential. However, if a stroke of fate falls upon him on the way, let it be our voice. Hoping that Your Excellency is reading these words as received from the envoy's own hand, we entrust him further negotiations, looking forward to Your Excellency's decision._

_With wishes of sagacity, we assure about our unchanging respect._

There was no signature. Jack absently turned the mirror, and clenched his eyes when it shot a glare. He pocketed it, wishing the trouble in his other hand could be disposed as easily.

The paper was the reason Hans had been seeking him. But it wasn't the solution. It only brought new riddles, solutions of which were more riddles. The flood of eloquence disguised the lack of any concrete information, same as the tangle of ornaments disguised the words. However, once the trick was solved, familiar shapes could be picked out from the embellishments. So, what facts could be picked out from between all this reverence?

The paper was a letter.

The authors had to be French, or at least they handled the language to perfection, and moreover, the same had to apply to the recipient.

There had been a lot of means and work put into the letter to relate the power of… who, actually? Those who hadn't signed their name. In spite of that, the entire message seemed to be a signature, clear to the aware, and enigmatic for others.

And last but not least, there was a good deal more reverence in letter than spirit. Amid the exquisite calligraphy, under the sublime courtesy of form, there was a hidden threat. Smooth words, paid in gold, veiled sharp steel, sharp enough to take Rusty Hans' life, even though he had no notion of what the words were. Nevertheless, he had known he had gotten into trouble.

Then how had he come into possession of something that not only couldn't have belonged to him, but neither would he have stolen it, since it didn't walk on four hooves? And why had he died before he had learnt what it was? And why the sea doesn't bring rum bottles to one's feet, instead of sand and driftwood?

The world shouldn't be made up of nothing but questions without answers, Jack thought bitterly.

The sea hummed, shimmering in the sunlight, uncaring of human thoughts and wishes. Rum and answers don't come by themselves. They have to be pursued, and what shows the way is… desire. Jack touched the smooth wood of the box at his belt. He unfastened it and opened the lid.

The disc swayed, turned slowly, and stopped. The arrow pointed at the sea. As always.

Far away, behind the horizon, _The Black Pearl_ cut the waves, the wind in her dark sails, unseizable, free.

For all – a tall story about ghosts. For Jack – an eternal dream, more real than the reality around him.

He always knew where she was. He never knew how to reach her. She always was there, more firm than the land underfoot, more unattainable than the clouds above head.

The compass didn't fail, yet it didn't help. As always. Driven by a human desire, it led directly to the goal, oblivious to the obstacles. Its owner asked for the solution to a mystery, but what he desired was the escape from all mysteries, traps, and worries confining him to land. Whatever form a mystery took, for Jack Sparrow, the final answer had always been the same black-sailed shape. The compass had no soul and no mind. It wasn't able to lie.

Jack stared into the hazy distance, yielding to a sudden weariness, overwhelming him with the weight of years. A mystery without resolution, the sea without a ship, and a desire without the satisfaction, all the same cage…

"Won't come for you, Captain."

Jack nearly jumped out of his skin. He snapped the compass shut, turned towards the voice coming from behind, almost knocked his hat off against the wood, and winced when his hair caught on a splinter. At last he half unhooked, half tore himself free, shoved the hat square, and glared a look of the offended dignity.

The glare slid down Anamaria, leaning on the top of the pilling, like water from the impregnated paper. She smirked. "A nonexistent boat can't sail," she said with the expert confidence of someone who had spent half a lifetime on the experimental launching of nonexistent boats. "Captain," she added with a sneer.

"Ship!" Jack growled. "Frigate," he precised scrupulously. He stole a glance up the gravel beach stretching behind her, wondering how the hell had she managed to sneak up on him, and sail up, before that. No more than ten yards away, _Jolly Mon_ rested on the shallows, leaning like her owner. Even her planking seemed to curve in a similar sneer. Jack glared at the impudent boat, and then Anamaria. "She exists," he said firmly, "an' it's me who'll go for her."

Anmaria snorted, resting her small fists on her hips. "Swimmin', mebbe! Followin' what you saw on a bottle's bottom!" The sneer came back. "Captain."

Jack huffed, touched to the quick, more than Tortuga's all wenches en block had ever managed, even the ones most implacable in demanding payment. He leapt to his feet, straightened his hat, took a breath, and… Slowly he lowered his hands. He turned back, sat against the piling, and gazed at the sea. "Someday, you'll mean that."

Anamaria, half disappointed, half delighted, a bit hesitantly straightened her own hat and leaned on the piling above him. "Yeah, an' what else, I'll stand at the helm, eh?" she muttered, mostly to have the last word. Nothing could make her confess that the heat in those particular eyes was the most look-worthy thing on this damned island. What bothered her most, was the amused gleam she had noticed sometimes in those eyes, seeming to suggest the confession was unnecessary. Annoyed by that thought and trying to chase it away, she looked around, but saw nothing of interest: clouds, a gull, waves, palms, gravel… a paper? Anamaria frowned, cast a glance at the hat below, still stubbornly directed at the far horizon, then the sheet covered with ink signs, abandoned on the ground next to the knee of the hat's owner.

There was another confession, hidden so deep that Anamaria was reluctant to admit even to herself. Nothing good came of such thoughts, better to focus on caulking leaks or scaling fish. But if… in a flash of madness… just for a while… if the thought was allowed to whisper a bit louder…

It would say: _take whatever you want, just give me the ink magic, show me how to know what paper tells!_

Anamaria shook her head, brushing the dream away. She cast another glance downward, but it seemed the hat hadn't moved from the previous time. She stooped and looked under the brim. The pirate looked as if he had forgotten her presence entirely, or as if he was looking for the most convenient place to drown himself. That was unusual. Unacceptable! The forgetting, of course.

"What, you still haven't found how to get rid of this stuff?" she asked. "Need to remind you of Mandy's tips?"

The only reply for the mockery was a weary look. _Save your breath_, it said, _or try something better._

Anamaria rolled her eyes, hiding a shadow of shame. All right, then. "No way Hans could read it on 'is own. So why did he carry it on 'im, eh?"

After a moment of silence, Jack picked up the sheet and began to fold it. "Cause no way he could read it on 'is own," he said sarcastically.

Anamaria squatted down and pointed a finger at him. "The last who carried it, lost his life, as I know well. Curiosity stirs at why you're carryin' it now, though Hans needs no readin' anymore, eh?"

Jack looked at the finger hovering menacingly before his nose, stowed the paper, and lifted his eyes to the equally menacing face of the finger's owner. The face went from menacing to a bit confused, and then to more menacing, at the sight of amusement in the pirate's eyes.

"Curiosity stirs at why your curiosity stirs at why I'm carryin' it, though the last one whose curiosity stirred lost his life, as you know well, eh?"

Anamaria blinked. "My curiosity's not your business to be curious!" she spat. "An' looks like too much of curiosity's bad for health of late," she added with satisfaction. "Two burials a week is one over the top—"

"Much obliged for a kind word!" Jack, a hand to his heart, grinned and looked skyward.

"—cause fishes flee from the bay. Keep your nasty doings away from my fishes!"

Now it was Jack's turn to blink, stunned by this peculiar demand. He looked thoughtfully at the sea. "Away, you say?"

He looked at _Jolly Mon_, then turned back to Anamaria and treated her with his most charming grin. "_Mademoiselle Capitaine_, let's settle what your unrivaled sense of business is telling you regarding an opportunity in the form of one willing for a trip to the mainland?"

Anamaria frowned suspiciously. The question itself was nothing surprising, since the strait between Tortuga and the 'mainland', that is Hispaniola, was crossed often, and fishers were the cheapest ferrymen. But this question was asked by Jack Sparrow. Cheapest doesn't mean free. She crossed her arms and put her chin forward. "An' what I'll have of that?"

Jack tilted his head and slowly widened the grin. "Whatever you want, my beau…"

He broke off at the sight of Anamaria's likewise slow smirk and narrowing eyes. Something was definitely wrong. According to the normal order of the world, he should be hurriedly ducking a slap, and most probably not manage on time. Yet Anamaria looked like a cat which spotted a mouse. Or a sparrow.

"Whatever, eh?"

Jack sweated a bit. The place under the piling, comfortable so far, suddenly became somewhat confining. "Er, actually…"

A moist bundle of tangled strings, followed by string on a reel, and an awl, landed on his lap.

"Mend my net!"


	6. Chapter 6

Jack tied the hundredth or so knot, winced and stretched his sore fingers. Then he sighed and bent, looking under the billowed sail's foot towards the stern. Anamaria, comfortably lounged, foot on the tiller and hat lowered on her face, didn't moved a muscle. Jack sighed again, almost besting the wind this time.

A corner of a smirk peeked from under the hat's brim.

Jack ground his teeth, looked forward over his shoulder and cheered up. A pale strip of a beach shone no more than a mile away, the steep green slopes of Hispaniola's mountains towering over it.

A short time later, Jack looked for the last time at _Jolly Mon_ tacking in the shallows, then turned and plunged into a grove. When the rustle of leaves and quarrel of parrots drowned out the hum of waves, the path widened and, like a brook into a river, came to a track, two mules wide and deeply rutted, running alongshore. This was the pride of civilization, active with statistically three mules and half a cart a week. A colonial road, in theory blessed with the gracious reign of the oversea king, in practice covered with the lawless yet enterprising lease of outlaws.

The pride of civilization looked fairly dry this day. Jack stepped onto the flat strip of sun-baked clay between the ruts and walked east. After some two hundred yards the road turned sharply towards the sea, round a huge mossy rock which leaned out from the trees. Jack cast a glance back, then slipped behind the biggest tree and stood still, listening intently. After a moment he pressed his hat firmer down, and brushed aside a curtain of vines climbing the rock. What they revealed wasn't a solid wall, but a shady passage between boulders.

Almost a year ago Rusty Hans had neglected both the looking back and the listening. That's why Jack could now enter the passage. The path running behind the rock turned toward the mountains, going away from the road. Soon it began to climb, first gently, then rising so much that the track zigzagged. Unlike the sunburned road, in the lower parts of the murky path lingered squelchy mud, then it began to give way to hard ground and stones, and the sunlight shined again between the foliage, more sparse at that height. At some next turn, Jack puffed and stopped, leaning against a trunk. He always was of the opinion that climbing was a nice and useful activity. On a rigging.

He looked back at the way already covered. Observed from above, the tree crowns resembled green clouds, crossed by the road's ochre ribbon. Farther there was the nearly white strip of the beach, melting into the sapphire expanse of water. The sun, far to the left, was lowering over the mountains' peaks.

Jack threw a final glance at the path behind him, just in case, then walked on. The trees there were much smaller and seemed to have a desperate hold onto the ground, and grass was more prevalent. More and more stones were underfoot, growing to slabs and boulders. Finally, the rocks grew to double height of a man, and then, behind the path's sudden turn, they rose higher than any mainmast.

The mass of rocks leaned inwards intertwined with roots and moss. The path led to a cleft at their base, high enough that a particularly tall man needn't take his hat off, and almost as wide.

Jack looked back once more, mostly on principle, then warily examined the tunnel's canopy. Privately he valued wooden ceilings and floors more, especially if they had at least twenty fathoms of water under them. As far as he was concerned, a self-respecting pirate shouldn't wish to make acquaintance with stone, unless it was sparkling, colorful and fitted into a pocket.

He sighed and delved into the cleft. Well, at least it hadn't iron bars embedded anywhere. It was also lit much better than many of the stony places, the ones with bars, that he had had the unpleasantness of visiting. The exit was a close and bright spot.

It was blocked by two solid rods, wedged into the fissures in the opposite walls, one knee-high and the other chest level. Jack thoughtfully examined the wooden ends, worn from being pulled and driven back. Just in case, he didn't take the rods down, only slipped through the gap between. There he stood on a small rock terrace that overlooked the private haven of Rusty Hans Snoggerson.

There wasn't much to look over. The miniature hollow, enclosed by vertical slopes, held a few haggard trees and a rivulet trickling through the thick carpet of fluffy grass. A small wooden shed nestled against the slope. Jack glanced that way, but the splash of the water was too enticing. Well, at the next chance, somewhere in a tavern, he would be spinning tales about faraway lands, where trees drop oranges into rivers of rum punch, but now he had to content himself with what was at hand. He perched on a boulder and reached to sip a few handfuls.

Something huffed behind.

Jack fell off the boulder. He swore when the cutlass hilt banged him in ribs, brushed his sodden hair back, and from the corner of his eye noticed his tricorn floating with the current. He grabbed it, sprang to his feet, and spun, splashing the water. And then he froze, eyes wide.

After a moment, he absentmindedly donned his hat, and shook off, gasping, when the cold water ran down his collar.

The horse standing before him accepted all this in stoic calm, watching the pirate with interest. Then it huffed again and stretched its neck out.

At the sight of the approaching snout, Jack sprang backward, startled, tripped over the boulder and sat hard.

"Ei…!" He tried to push the velvet nose away.

The horse, undiscouraged, sniffed at a pocket of his coat, then tried to thrust its muzzle into the other.

"Ei, mate…! Ow, slow down, we weren't introduced to each other!"

Having found nothing interesting, the horse snorted as if in reproach, and grazed on the rivulet's bank. Chewing a tuft, it glanced at the pirate. _It befits to come with a gift_, the glance seemed to say. _Especially at the first visit._

"You have the grass at least," Jack said, suddenly realizing how much time had passed since his poor breakfast.

"Be glad I don't like horsemeat," he muttered in a lame try at restoring his sodden dignity. Sodden and tattered: his shirt cuff missed a button. He glanced under the coat sleeve, then looked around. A waste of a quite big piece of mother-of-pearl… But nothing shone except the water. Jack examined the cuff again, then lowered his arm. The ragged sleeve drooped, covering his fingers. Jack stooped to a pile of pebbles and moved his palm over them. Now one pebble was missing. The pirate smiled and shook his hand, letting the pebble drop back.

His mood improved, he looked at the horse, methodically cropping grass. Come to think of it, discovering something of the four-hooved nature in this place was nothing strange. The hollow had served Hans' secret store for delicate – by way of being alive – loot between acquirement and sale. And if something strange happens to a thief, it's best to look for the answer in his lair.

That brilliant plan had failed at that point, Jack admitted reluctantly, watching grass blades disappear into the horse's mouth. The grass-eater didn't look like an explanation. It looked like… well, a grass-eater. A light brown stallion, with white stockings, snout, and a spot on his forehead. A common horse, admittedly quite nice and not so big as it could be. In Jack's opinion all horses were too big, and the most of them malicious.

"You took me by surprise, s'all," he said. "You shouldn' stalk around like that.

The horse gazed and pricked an ear. _Yeah, of course._

Jack narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. Then he slid off the boulder and sidled to the big head bent over another grass tuft. Not that horse ears were as everyday sight as his own ten fingers, but this particular pair looked bizarre. The hirsute tips were bent inward, curled almost like ringlets on a powdered wig of some fancy fop. Probably some flaw Hans could surely name and tell what loss it meant in a horse's price… Jack shrugged.

"No worries, not everyone's perfect," he stated magnanimously, adjusting his hat. "Surely someone will 'preciate your inner beau…"

He sprang back when the horse lifted his head and passed, moving to more lush spot. Jack suspiciously eyed the beast. He could swear there had been amusement in that big eye. He frowned and turned away.

"Stop gettin' in me way, I have weightier matters than natterin'," he announced firmly, going towards the shed. More for the lack of ideas than with any hope, but this… this _gelding_ didn't have to know that.

He stopped on the threshold, or rather where the threshold should had been, and peeked through the door, or rather a wide gap in a wall. 'Shed' was far too noble name for the rickety shack of planks driven into the ground and covered with more, overgrown with moss and grass tufts. Here and there peculiar reinforcements were visible, in the form of additional boards nailed crosswise, and more criss-crossed over those, when the nails had rusted and the wood warped from humidity. All this gave the shed the look of an abandoned nest of some monstrous bird. Jack doubtfully eyed the irregular row of wooden scraps, apparently serving the dignified duty of eaves, and tentatively poked the 'door-frame'.

For a wonder, it didn't move. The pirate slipped in to look around. The inside was spacious enough for two horses to turn, and surprisingly bright, for the sum total of gaps in the walls could have made a big window. Only the ceiling was sealed with clay, which made the space too dark for grass and too dry for moss. Overall, the shed was as empty as the life of a law-abiding burgher, and equally uninteresting. Here and there was a vague hoof print on the earth, a few scraps of rope under the walls, and a bundled blanket in a corner. More on principle than with hope, Jack worked along the walls, trying the planks, checking the solidity of the tamped ground, moving the line scraps aside, lifting the blanket…

Silver shined in the dark. The pirate froze, staring at the mass of glittering metal heaped on the ground. He threw the blanket aside to look closer. Silver, indeed. Not a shapeless mass, but engraved metal plate, with polished wood underneath, framing a broad patch of red leather. A saddle.

There was no one in the shed to see the pirate's teeth shining no less than the heap of wealth at his feet, no one saw how his eyes shone even brighter. Jack crouched to gently run his fingers over the intricately ornamented plate and through softly chiming festoons of spangles and sequins attached to the lower edge. He tilted the saddle to discover a set of silver whatsits for feet, and a bunch of neatly coiled leather straps: from thongs adorned with studs and smaller sequin garlands, to broad embossed belts, still stiff and creaking. The smell of fresh leather was distinct over the whiff of horse sweat. The saddle was new.

A stamp of a hoof drew Jack's attention to the door where the horse stood staring. Jack thoughtfully regarded the beast's height. It wasn't impressive. And the saddle was rather small too.

"Dandy, ain't you?" he murmured and heaved the saddle up. "Move aside, you're blockin' the light."

The sun had already dipped behind the rocky skyline of the hollow, but the light outside the shed was still sufficient to observe the tiny details of engraving and the padding stitches. Jack got down to the inspection with the concentration of a cat hunting a flea. The horse quickly lost interest and went back to nibbling grass, occasionally pricking his curled ears at the jangle of adornments as the pirate ransacked the saddle's nooks and crannies. Maybe the brown grass-eater didn't exactly match the ciphered letter, but his service outfit was its very essence. It had the same air of ostentatious luxury, this time in polished mahogany, scarlet maroquin, and silver plating inlaid with gold. Even the intricate ornamentation brought to mind the ink calligraphy, though the pattern was different, as if… oriental? Except one detail on the upper surface of the front arcuate piece. Jack frowned.

Tiny, definitely Latin-script letters formed a row running from the left up over a flat knob on the curved top, and down the right side. Delicate tooling meandered between the signs, concealing their shapes, just like on the paper. Jack, irritated, ground his teeth and looked closely, searching for the first letter. _E… G… O… M… E… R…_

He frowned again. Looked like not only the script was Latin. But something was wrong here. _Ego Mercuri… Mercuriun_? And after it: _sun… tiiad… fero_? It meant nothing.

He stroked his braided beard, thoughtfully gazing at the bizarre inscription. The engraver's mistake? Or maybe…? He followed the entire row again, examining each letter separately. Two and only two, the middle ones, the twelfth one from the beginning and the twelfth from the end, were atop the knob. N and S. One of those few in the alphabet, which looked the same, whatever way they laid. Interesting.

He traced the inscription with his fingers, stopping at the knob. He pushed down.

The knob yielded, sinking into its base. Jack hesitated and tried to turn the knob inside the hole. Suddenly it clinked and sprang high. At the same time something squeaked – the front sheet of plating flipped down, to reveal a narrow slit in the saddle's front edge. Jack grinned and studied the inscription again. Having turned with the knob, the letters were now switched.

_Ego Mercurius nuntii adfero._

I, Mercury, am bringing the message.

Jack turned to look at the horse, head down, seemingly dozing.

"Mercury, eh?" The pirate chuckled. "Well, not your fault, mate. I can call you Silvers."

One big eye blinked, and a snort sounded.

"Maybe Platino? Even worse… Hey, what about Argento?"

The horse turned and stomped away.

"Fine, you'll be the Horse, over an' done!" Jack yelled. "You should appreciate I asked!"

He turned back to the more interesting matters. He pushed the ajar plate, opening the slit further. It yielded with a quiet squeak of hidden springs, revealing a small niche. Empty.

Jack's face surely wouldn't have looked different than if he'd opened a sealed bottle to find only sand. He examined the cache inch by inch, tapped at the smooth walls, traced the corners with the knifepoint… Nothing. He tugged at his beard in frustration. What's the use of a cache which…

His eyes narrowed. He drew the paper out of his pocket and examined it anew. Then he began to fold it carefully, trying to follow the old creases. Finally he had a small thick packet. He opened the cache again, grinning at the packet's neat fit. The plate obediently clicked shut, the springs creaked, the knob turned back. The saddle looked innocent again, hiding the message carried by Mercury.

After a moment of self-admiration, Jack's face went long. Nothing uncommon in a message going on horseback, but its usual place was a bit higher, namely under the rider's hat. Something, or rather someone, was missing here. Another puzzle sprouted from the previous one's solution.

The pirate propped his head on his hands and stared gloomily at the ground, feeling very tired, very hungry, and a bit cold. It was already dark, and he suspected that grass and rootlets didn't become more edible since the last time he had tested them, many years ago. Horsemeat was becoming more alluring now…

Hooves rustled the grass behind him, and then his tricorn was knocked forward. Jack waved half-heartedly, warding off the importunate snout.

"Better don' tempt..." he murmured. Then he reluctantly rose and trudged to the nearest tree. When he came back with an armful of dead twigs and bark, the horse was dozing again. He didn't awake even at the clatter of the wood thrown on the ground and the crack of sticks being broken. Nor at a grumbling pirate, who felt mistreated by the world in general. He was even more annoyed by the vague feeling he ran aground these reefs on his own wish.

"One sleeps nicely after supper, eh? If you're lucky, you won't end up in a pot before I'll sell you." Jack raked up some crumbled bark into a pile. "No matter where." He picked the most rotten scrap. "And whom and for how much." He blew into sparkles. "Will be enough for a better dinner than your bones."

A wisp of smoke wafted from the tinder and drifted into the darkness. Hearing a loud snort, Jack raised his head. The horse stood on stiff legs, his ears pricked and nostrils distended.

"Aye, better! Anyway, what you can know about it, you grassophile…" Jack looked hastily around, in searching of another piece of wood. Being drier than he had thought, the wood disappeared as if the flames were starving too. As he flung more in the fire, he glanced at the remaining stock of fuel, and decided a visit to other trees would be advisable. He took a blazing branch from the fire. The moon had waned further this night, and beyond the bonfire's ring of warmth and light the hollow sunk in the darkness.

A panicked squeal stopped him dead. Jack lifted the torch higher and saw twin flames mirrored in the horse's wide eyes. The ears were no longer pricked, but laid flat to the head. The horse squatted down on his hind legs, meaning to retreat, and kicked backward when he ran into the shed. The planks resounded with a hollow thud and something creaked. A cloud of rot mingled with dust from the thrashing hooves as he reared, whining wildly. Jack instinctively sprang back, shielding himself with the torch… then he looked at it, and again at the horse. He hurled the torch back into the bonfire and jumped aside. He tripped over a grass tuft, fell and rolled, looking back in time to see the horse dash forward and vault over the waning flames, a leap worthy of a forest fire. The hooves thudded, the tail waving a farewell as it vanished in the darkness.

Jack blinked, and remembered to shut his mouth. He waited until his heart regained a rate more suitable for a dauntless pirate, adjusted his hat, and decided to get up. He looked at the glowing remains of the bonfire, the clouds of dust settling about the shed, and then the darkness into the horse had disappeared.

"Huh…" he said weakly. He cleared his throat and spat dust.

He stooped to examine the wooden wall. Then he glanced up at the roof, warily stepped back, and regarded the wall again. A hole gaped in one plank, broken and bent inward. Another board, one of the crosswise ones, lay on the ground, rusted nails up. Jack tugged his beard, and looked backward, recalling the leap he had witnessed a moment ago. Five feet? Six, like as not.

"You're clever in legs, mate." He looked back at the broken planks. "Maybe I'll think yet on the 'where', 'whom', and 'how much'".

He looked up at the stars. The night promised to be cool. He picked up the detached plank, and peeked inside the shed. The blanket laid beyond his reach, so he caught it with the nail jutting from the plank and retrieved it. Lighting the plank in the coals, he looked around a bit nervously, and went in search of another tree.

* * *

><p>Plata (Spanish) – silver. Platinum's name comes from Spanish <em>platina<em>, being diminutive of 'silver'. _Platino_ is the masculine form of the word, and the modern name of platinum in Spanish.

Argento (Italian) – silver.

Mercury's old name was quicksilver, but it's also the name of one handsome Roman fellow with wings at his heels, having the post of gods' messenger.


	7. Chapter 7

A tiny grey bird flitted through the cool air, perched on the jagged edge of the roof, and chirped briskly.

"Uhhh…" Jack lifted the blanket, shuddered, and immediately withdrew, curling into a tighter ball yet. Then he sneezed. The blanket was definitely horse's. He peeked out again, squinting in sharp rays of sun, barely risen over the rocky walls of the hollow. With a sigh, he threw the blanket aside, sat up, and groaned when his bones protested. He winced and gloomily eyed the bird, still making a cheerful noise. Self-respecting captains in the certain age should wake in their own cabins. Or in some warm embrace…

No embrace. No rum. No breakfast. Plenty of fresh air and dry land, as far as the eye can see. Nothing but misfortune.

The lack of breakfast quickly took the lead, overpowering even the lack of rum, the dry land feeling rather damp and chilling at the moment.

The horse lifted his muzzle from the rivulet, pricked his curly ear at the sound of steps, and looked askew at the pirate. Dipping his hands into the water, Jack glanced at the beast's hind hoof, rested casually on the sharp edge.

"If you see the one who dispatched ol' Hans, you can treat him to this. I'll be back… when I'll be back." He turned and walked toward the tunnel. Halfway he stopped. "If someone asks, you haven' seen me, savvy?"

Some time later he peeked warily between the curtain of vines at the road. It was empty and quiet, aside from the ceaseless twitters and croaks in the thicket, so the pirate slipped from behind the rock and set course west.

xxx

Four miles and much sweat later, he cursed mosquitoes and land tracks in general, French ones in particular. The highland chill was less than a pale memory now. The sun beat down the earth like a hammer on an anvil, and the still, heavy air hovered in the forest glade. Jack left the hollow with a vision of eel in butter waiting a few miles away – old Jorge had the lucky hand with a net and knew what to do with a pan. What drove the pirate now was the thought of the spring which spurt from the rocks nearby the old cottage and grove of palm trees, heavy with milky coconuts.

The small marina on the 'land' side of the canal had abided there almost as long as, it seemed at times, the pirates ruled Tortuga across said canal. In fact, it was since a certain slave had at last grown fed up with the humble saying _Oui, Messieur_, and some night left _le maison_ of that _Messieur_, not disturbing him with farewells. And 'cause the colour of his own skin was of the sort excellent against the burning sun, but risky in encounters with white _Messieurs_, he had not stopped until the island, where strong hands, smart brain, and above all the jangling of gold weighed more than one's skin tone. No wonder, considering to sort the good citizens of Tortuga by colour would require a thorough scrubbing first.

However, the merry Tortuga had seemed too merry to the proud owner of the freshly acquired freedom, so he had decided to settle in a more quiet place. Soon a small hut had arisen by an inlet on Hispaniola's shore. As years passed, it had become a commodious and prosperous farm, which had gained the fame of the best – and only – inn within fifty miles up and down the shore. Habitués knew that for calling it 'tavern' one could get a cold look from the owner and, in the best case, cold porridge. "You've got taverns over there," Jorge used to say, "on the other side of the canal, the lousy one."

Besides, Jorge had become Jorge not before breaking off with the former lord and former name. Apparently the lord was a secretive anti-royalist, for everyone wearing breeches and black skin in his mansion had been called George or Louis. Being formerly one of those Georges, the fugitive re-named himself for Jorge, or rather he had been re-named upon the meeting with one Melania, a runaway from the other half of Hispaniola. Melania had distinguished herself with an unrivalled culinary talent and an absolute lack of linguistic talents. As a result, the inn always had been immersed in a cloud of enticing smells and, as it seemed, ceaseless stream of Spanish profanities, since Melania's temperament was Spanish-like too. Alas, it hadn't defeated some mysterious fever. It was almost two years since Melania had left the world, more quiet without her, and the more surly Jorge with their sons. Having lost some of its former glory, the inn persisted nevertheless, still tempting with a mug and bowl of fare. The hot heads of those tempted rather by the silver earned with that fare were cooled down by the sight of the sons, two lads strong as oxen.

Speaking of silver… Jack stopped half-step and fumbled in a pocket. Two, four, seven… Scarlett recently valued herself more, since she had moved from the street into the tavern. Nine, ten… Jorge didn't value his pan so high, but there was no hope he could forget about the six shillings of more than a month. And one could get a credit from Jorge but the once.

xxx

Jack leaned against a tree and fanned himself with his hat, staring at the road stretching before him. Worse, rising. The hill was annoyingly steep. But on the other side was the last part of the way.

As he was walking up, the shore emerged slowly. The gently curved strip of white sand divided the forest-fringed group of buildings from the glimmering expanse of water. A turquoise shadow lied under the two cliffs framing the bay. And under the keel of a brig.

Jack came to a dead stop as if the brick-hard clay of the road spilt again and bound his boots. He cast a glance at the mastheads. No flag.

No matter, she shouldn't be there at all, with or without the flag! No one except pirates ventured into pirate waters, and no pirate would anchor in this bay, or even attempt to enter it. The basin was actually a little lagoon; its sapphire hue paled beyond the cliffs, and the tawny shade stretched almost to the horizon, warning of the reefs. Even at the high tide, nothing bigger than flat-bottomed fishing boats moored at the inn's pier. If the brig had passed in one piece, she had to have been blessed by a particularly good humoured Calypso. Indeed, the tight ring of rocks just beyond the safe lagoon looked very typical for her idea of joke…

"T' will be to your health, Fred."

Within a moment Jack managed to curse noisy insects and birds drowning any sounds out, regret that he lacks sparrow's wings, and turn back.

A tall thin man, leaned on the barrel of a musket braced on the ground, examined the pirate from head to foot and back. "You'll see, you'll come to like milk yet," he added.

Fred, burlier and more sweaty than the first man, rolled his eyes. "There's no milk, and won't be anymore, or have you forgotten? And you couldn't drag yourself here in the afternoon, eh?" he yelled to Jack. "I've just lost my day's ration of rum, by you!"

Jack blinked and made the most sympathetic expression he could. It wasn't very difficult in the face of such tragedy.

"Tomorrow's," the skinny one corrected phlegmatically. "The today's one you owe me cos' the first spotted parrot was blue."

Fred glanced at him suspiciously. "That wasn' the yesterday's?"

"Yesterday's was for catchin' no one day before."

"Dammit, I'm not bettin' with you anymore." Fred waved his hand, and suddenly remembered he had a musket too. "And what are you staring at, move on!"

Jack, startled by the muzzle pointing at him, hastily withdrew his hand from his own pistol. He spread his arms, presenting his most innocent grin. "Heavens sent you, gentlemen, amid this heathen wilderness! I'm immensely grateful that you might show the way to a lost man."

Both sentries' brows moved up in unison. The skinny one chuckled. Fred lifted the musket to his shoulder. "That way," he told slowly and clearly. The lock clicked.

Jack stepped back. He hesitated, then turned and walked down the hill, casting tentative glances at the sentries following.

The skinny one grimaced and spat. "Cap'n will be so happy," he muttered

xxx

The Captain was on the far side of the brig's camp. He sat in the shadow of a tree, at a table covered in maps, staring at them with a face as if he had lost all rum rations for the rest of his life. At the sound of footsteps, he raised his eyes.

"Sir, we caught this one as he was stealin' to the camp," Fred said, nudging Jack with his musket's muzzle and casting him a casual glance. Then he blinked, looked again and reached a hand. Jack, craning his neck to see the map, was snatched by the collar. He fell back, and gave Fred a look of offended dignity.

The Captain looked at Fred, then the other sentry clutching the pirate's cutlass and pistol under his arm. He put out his hand in a silent demand. The sentry handed him the weapons. The Captain ignored the tarnished cutlass and inspected the pistol's workmanship. At last he eyed Jack up and down.

"You have a name?"

"Smith." Jack grinned charmingly.

The Captain pulled a wry face. "The ninth one this week, how nice," he grunted.

Jack opened his eyes wide. "My! Vile cheats they were, all of th—"

A musket's stock tripped his legs.

"Anyone let you talk?" Fred's voice came from somewhere above. Apparently it didn't apply to him, for he added: "String him up, sir?"

Jack got up on all four, vaguely registering the pain of his raw hand. He stared at a corner of map hanging from the table squarely before him. He looked at the ship. Her faded paint revealed a long journey, and she listed heavily to starboard… Suddenly it sunk in him what he had heard. He perked his head up, opening his eyes wide at the sentry, then at the Captain, who remained silent, his unseeing gaze fixed somewhere over the table.

"Any messages from Anderson?" the Captain asked. "Nah, never mind…" he muttered. He produced a big crumpled handkerchief and wiped his face. Jack narrowed his eyes, catching a glitter on the hand holding the cloth.

"Join him to the rest…" The Captain broke off, looked at one sentry, then at the other, and rolled his eyes. "That living rest!" he explained. "If there happens another one, don't shoot. First bring him to me, understand?"

Another jerk at the collar pulled the pirate up on his feet, to the sound of a double "Yessir!" Pushed toward the buildings, Jack looked behind yet, at the table and the Captain, again in gloomy contemplation of the maps, the pistol serving now as a paperweight.

On the corner hanging beyond the edge, a decorative cartouche framed a triad of crosses with three letters.

Was the map swag? The East India Trading Company didn't let its maps free. The captain of an Indiaman, at the first grappling hooks on the railing, first set fire to the archive and then attended the ship's defence. In spite of all, it could be a coincidence if not the same triple sign on a broad ring on the Captain's finger.

Jack had once worn a similar one. Not long. He had quickly decided the crude lump of silver was weighty more than worthy, like everything coming from the Company.

The sentry at his heels nudged him, and pointed at the corner of a hut. Rounding it, Jack caught a glance of the shore in time to see the other sentry pitch the pirate's cutlass into the water.


	8. Chapter 8

The door slammed and the bolt grated home. Jack Sparrow bumped against the far wall and slid down.

"Didn' deserve that," he said to the nearest brick.

He really thought so. Now he was missing the cutlass, pistol, one shilling, and two livres. Fred found less than half of his hidden pockets, but still one might expect some courtesy, in Jack's opinion. Really, the Company's men must be overpaid.

"Da kept sayin' the same. When 'e used to talkin' yet," a voice rumbled nearby.

A tug at his hair checked Jack to a half turn. A splinter in a plank, he found. The bricks ended some foot above the ground, the upper part of the wall being wooden. He unhooked himself, sat and squinted to where the voice had come from. Half-blind in the gloomy interior after the sharp sunlight, he managed to see no more than a roughly shirt-shaped, crouched form. He looked around, groping for his hat on the floor.

As his eyes grew accustomed, the place turned out to be not so dark. A small window near the ceiling allowed enough light to see the straw-scattered ground. The smell hovering at dirt level made Jack peer suspiciously at the hat he had just found and ask the question that fleetingly took the lead among many others.

"Where's Felicita?"

"In three dozen stomachs," replied another voice, and clucked. José sat cross-legged against the wall next to the door, with his usual expression of lazy unconcern, sucking his pipe. No one had ever seen him actually smoke it, not that anyone could remember it anyway – the only object nearby older from José seemed to be the rocks that formed the bay. And mockers used to say even that was questionable.

"An' her horns chucked behin' the barn," the rumbling from the corner added scrupulously. The corner was the darkest part of the cowshed. Over the once-white shirt was a barely visible gleam of eyes. Still, enough could be seen that Jacinto's face couldn't be described as unconcerned. Though, to tell the truth, Jacinto could be usually described just as towering. Usually he was also seen with his brother.

"Where's Jenaro?" Jack asked.

It suddenly seemed colder in the shed, and certainly quieter.

"Aye" Jacinto muttered after a while. "Da quit talkin' jus' then…"

"An' began to do what ordered," added José. Jacinto cast him a somber glance, and fixed his eyes back on the dirt at his feet.

Jack stood up, put his hat on, and warily peeked through the window. It opened onto a forested hillside; branches almost touching the shed's wall. Distant sounds of the camp came from around the corner.

He turned back and sat next to José. Experience said better not to be in front of the door, in case the company should increase.

"Do what ordered by who?" he asked.

José glanced at him from the corner of his eye and smirked. The pirate's tone said I'm beginning to be fed up.

"Such guys from one brig," said José. "Mebbe you saw 'em on the way here."

Jack sighed heavily and outstretched his legs, leaning against the wall. "How did they enter the bay?"

José clicked his tongue again at his pipe. "D'like to know it 'emselves, methinks. T'was that storm a week ago, eh?"

"Maybe there was," agreed Jack, who a week ago had had a rum-sweetened break in life, but was not necessarily willing to confess it at the moment.

"Aye, t'was, as if all devils had a brawl in Hell. We thought it would blow us away togetha' wif the whole inn. No one dared to poke their nose out. They all sat and kept drinkin' for courage, wif faces as if t'was vinegar in their mugs." José cackled. "All kept 'eir mouth shut up, only Bald Moses cursed dat his boat left at the pier would go to splinters, Well, he wasn' right, cos later it turned out what had boomed agains' the wall, d'been his boat, whole."

Jack sent him a long look. Moses' _Susie_ was hardly smaller than Anamaria's _Jolly Mon_.

"Right, we hadn' found her mast," José admitted. "But we didn' try anyway, for t'was already more than enough masts on the bay. By dawn it calmed, so we got out, we're lookin' and a boat is 'ere, and 'ey're swarmin' on the beach like crabs on a dead dolphin. Got no time to blink, and we stood rounded up like sheep, a dozen of 'em pokin' our arses wif bayonets, an' the rest searchin' the farm and pulled out from hay those who 'ere sleepin'. 'Ey were runnin' around like madmen, and dat Captain of 'em the most. _Pump the bilges_, he bellowed, _unload the hold, move the balla—!_"

"A week?" Jack cut in.

José scowled, irritated by the interruption. "Jus' told it, eh?"

"So they aren't in such hurry, as it seems."

"The reef fondled 'em well..."

"Aye, can be seen. So what 'ey're doin' from a week?"

"Pumpin'." José spat. "And eatin'."

"What about feeding?" Jack recalled the original reason he had come to the inn.

"Sure! Generous chaps, 'ey are! Have eaten 'emselves all we had, and gave us the best o' what was left in dat hold of 'em." José waved his pipe toward a corner occupied by no one.

There was a bowl on the ground. Its contents was trying to crawl out, in all directions. Jack blinked and decided he wasn't that hungry as yet. However, next to the bowl was a wooden pitcher. He stood and peeked into it. The water smelled relatively fresh. Well, at least it didn't move.

Wiping his moustache, he stared unseeing at the lush foliage outside the window, meditative.

What the brig needed was careening and new planking, the sooner the better. Yet those infestious buggers had done nothing to haul her ashore, as if they hadn't the time… time they had wasted in the waters, where no one other than the Brethren and less than a first rate would dare to venture.

Jack sat again next to José.

"They're waiting or searching," he stated rather than asked. "For what?"

"Well, now it's everythin' what didn' flee yet," José grumbled. "The cow lasted one day, all goats and hens another, t'was nothin' except bare hooks left in the larder last time I saw it, and haven' heard our mule's brayin' from long time…"

"Da comes later an' later, an' you cannot hear the musket's boom," Jacinto said.

"They wouldn' manage to sneak up on a deaf boar splashin' in mud," José explained in the reply to Jack's questioning glance. "So they're spurrin' Jorge into the forest every mornin', for he shoot everythin' lookin' edible."

"Huh?"

"Well, first 'e said it would be over 'is dead body. And 'ey said it needn' be his own. And… well, later 'ey said 'e still has the other one yet, Jacinto, they meant. An' dat Jorge decides as it pleases 'im, but 'ey have lead'n'powder yet, and 'ey wanna eat. So he quit resistin'. An' talkin'."

"Mhm," Jack muttered after a long heavy silence. "Jorge's hunting. Jacinto's, uh, warranting. Moses and the others certainly wasted…" He glanced at the bowl. "Wasted air?"

"Aye." José nodded. "Somehow all failed in weanin' from it, within' droppin' dat fathom or two." He looked at Jack and shrugged. "As for Jenaro, he got a ball, but 'eir Cap'n raged for wastin' the powder. So the rest went to the rope…"

"Ah," Jack said, and lifted a brow, fixing an expectant gaze at José.

"An' I'm the best pilot within a hundred miles around." The old man proudly stuck out his scrawny chest. "No one knows the reef like me. I'll see any boat 'rough, even a big 'un."

Jack lifted the other brow.

José's wide grin didn't falter in the least. It was quite eloquent. _Just try to think a bit louder_, it said, _about those two dinghies I've sunk just this year, and I'll bite through your throat with all my three teeth._

Jack averted his eyes. It was better not inquire into that which he had not been asked so far, especially when he wouldn't know the answer. It's bad luck to find oneself at the wrong end of a muzzle, but real troubles begin at hearing "Save him for the time being".

The door slammed open, and Jorge was pushed in. He stood in the middle of the shed and blinked in the dimness, looking hastily around till he came to Jacinto. He slowly relaxed his fists, clenched so far. Then he stepped to the wall, sat next to his son and fixed his eyes on the scattered straw.

Jack eyed him for a while. "Who, apart from Jenaro and Moses?"

A lengthy suck indicated that José was rummaging his memory. "Lemme think… Fatty Sam, Abe Higgins… Dammit, 'e won't gimme back me six livres 'nymore. Oh, since we're at givin' back, tis' reminds me—!"

"So, two more, right?" Jack cut in hurriedly.

"T'was Hong Lee Hobbler yet… Ah, an' Goldie Miller."

"Her too?"

"Too. Though 'ey grumbled at 'eir Cap'n for dat haste of 'is, me heard. An' one laughed, _no worries_, 'e said, _French lasses will be better yet._"

"Huh? An' there were any?"

"Nay, only Goldie and us, nine men. An' now 'ere's six dead 'uns on the bottom."

Jack frowned and counted once more. "Six?"

"Aye, wif Hans would be seven, hadn' he scrammed."

Silence hovered for a moment.

"Rusty Hans?" Jack said.

"Rusty."

"An' just he, of all...?"

"Gets easier on four legs," José snorted.

"Ah. Where did he get four legs from?"

"Borrowed 'eirs. Methinks 'e wasn' goin' to give it back, though." José clapped his thigh and burst into a wheezing giggle. "T'was a sight!"

Jack lounged more comfortably. "Could use a laugh too. Somehow there's been few opportunities recently. We've time aplenty."

"Y'see, t'was like this. Once we're all herded, 'ey got down to unloadin' an' mendin' dat tub of theirs. The ones wif muskets are guardin' us, others are runnin' to an' fro, their Cap'n is hollerin' an' the Bosun louder yet. An' suddenly there's runnin' some dandy scrag and yellin' _Captain, the horse went mad, we must have it out of the hold!_ An' other one's followin', a swarthy chap wif 'is head wrapped up in some rag, an' he's draggin' a horse down the gan'plank. To tell the truth, t'was more the horse who did draggin', so the swarthy one tried to steer the course at least." José chuckled again.

"They dragged tis way each other ashore, an' soon there was no one round of 'em, cos the horse was kickin' about better than our old mule, an' dat been a devilish beast…" José sighed sadly. He claimed he had earned bunk and board in Jorge's inn by chopping wood. In fact, he was hardly weightier than the axe, so he mostly scrubbed pots, fished the reef, and went for supplies in a mule-drawn cart, cause for some mysterious reasons the 'devilish beast' tried to kick him less than others.

"So the horse's squealin' an' kickin'," the old man went on, "an' the swarthy one's danglin' from the reins like a puppet. Dat popinjay ordered 'im to move the beast from sand to firm ground, what happened t'be next to us, before the inn, since t'was most trodden there. _Calm the horse down_, 'e told, _before it'll get any harm_. An' Hans, me hearin', next to me's mutterin' dat if he wouldn' yell so… But one of those roundin' us whacked 'im right away, so he fell quiet. M'lookin' at 'im, an' he's starin' at the horse, eyes gleamin' as if he had a candle plugged into each ear. An' there looks like the beast s'not goin' to calm down in the least. Aye, methinks I'd went mad too, after such a night in dat hold of 'eir!"

José had become so caught up in his tale, Jack was obliged to delicately move beyond the reach of the pipe, brandished to punctuate the words.

"So dat swarthy's clutchin' the bridle like a shroud in storm, getting' more an' more green aroun' the gills, an' he's tryin' to say sumthin'. We couldn' hear dat, but the popinjay was closer, so he got it. Frowned an' is thinkin' hard. Jus' then the Cap'n came, an' they both started to confer. Tell ya, never before I've seen a whispered squabble. At last it looked 'ey came to accord, an' the Cap'n went onboard. Yet he eyed us first, in such way dat I felt cold, though we're in the full sun. Didn' take long, we're lookin', he's comin' back an' luggin' sumthin'. An' it gleamed so much, dat we're only at close range saw t'was a saddle. Tell ya, dat been long time from I've seen so much silver at once, an' t'was janglin' even more than you, methinks." José chuckled, casting a glance at Jack.

"And what was then?" Jack asked in a tone of icy politeness, which caused José another burst of wheezy laugh. Finally, wiping tears, he took up the tale:

"Well, 'ey managed to put it on dat buckin' beast, both saddle'n'bridle. All three of 'em got down to dat, an' a damned hard job t'was, cos even the dandy lost 'is breath at last, an' the reins slipped off the swarthy's hands. 'E tripped an' fell just under the hooves. So we all laughed an' waited what's on. An' could'ja guess? Once the horse felt let up, it quit neighin' an' strugglin', stepped over 'im an' is goin' where more room was, t'ward us. The dandy tried to grab the bridle, but 'e only got slapped 'is face wif the tail an' toppled over on 'is arse. Now even those wif muskets were laughin'. An' all of a sudden we're hearin' _Help ya catch 'im, M'lord?_ Dunno when, but Hans had slipped from among us an' gotten in the horse's way. Silence had fallen, nobody's movin' an' all starin' at Hans, only the horse's not givin' a damn an' sniffin' at Hans' hat. You'd have hardly time to hit a mosquito, so long it lasted, an' the next we saw t'was mud splutterin' from under hooves an' horse's rump wif Hans on it, fleein' away up the road. Those wif muskets began to shoot right away, but the dandy raised a racket again, _Stop the fire!_ he yelled, _Y'kill the horse, you scum!_ He ordered the chase, all who were on the beach.

"They hadn't more horses?" Jack asked.

"Looks like only those in barrels… Didn' last long, 'ey began to come back, breathless an' empty handed.

"An' their Cap'n?"

José scratched the grey bristle on his cheek.

"Well," he said after a silence, "he bellowed an' ordered back those ones who had guarded us. Promised 'em dat if they let someone flee any more, they'll be peelin' barnacles off the keel with 'eir bare hands. The dandy came to 'im an' talked sumthin, but the other cut 'im shortly. _Blunders from the very beginnin'_, 'e said. _Too few horses, an' now less an' less time, an' we're takin' more an' more water_, 'e said."

"Didn' whisper anymore?"

"Nay, we could hear 'im well. An' he looked at us an' said 'ere's too many ears'n'eyes, but at least tis can be fixed."

For a long time, Jack stared at the ground between his boots. Finally he swore so foully that José winced and peered at him, as if expecting to see sparks scattering. Indeed, he saw sparks, but gathered in the pirate's narrowed eyes.

Jack sprang to his feet. He was beginning to choke in there, and it had nothing to do with the smell. He looked up at the roof, and then the walls. He walked along them. _If a plank or two could be removed, unnoticed…_ He stopped. _Unnoticed? No._ He turned back and eyed the door.

José sucked his pipe and watched, his face becoming more bored than mocking. After the week of counting straws and knots in wood, the daft pirate was the most entertaining object within sight. _Funny thing, he always stumbles over his own legs, and now is pussyfooting like a cat round a dovecot, with not a jangle. And his stare, catlike as well. Is he expecting to set the door on fire or what? And now he's sat down and shut his eyes._

Jack was trying to recall the details of what he had seen before entering the cowshed. The guard had been at the bolt side of the door, not the hinges'. When they had approached, he had leaped up from a small stool and tried to appear as if he hadn't just wakened. What if he had moved the stool? Nay, the door faced east, the shed's shadow must fall away, not back. The bolt had no padlock. It was just a crude iron bar, loosely resting in rings driven into the wood, two in the planks, third in the sturdy frame timber. The construction was aimed more toward preventing exits rather than entrance. Cows are hardly known for initiative, but Felicita had tended to be adventurous.

He opened his eyes and frowned. The door was considerably narrower than its frame, a half-inch gap all around. Jack took off his hindering hat and peeped into the slit. Almost two inches of wood and yet an inch of air to the bolt; the rings weren't visible.

He knelt on one knee, and reached into his bootleg. Fred still needed to learn a couple of things about searching.

Jack slipped his dagger's blade into the gap until its guard met the timber. He squinted, trying to see the tip of the steel, almost white against the bolt's black iron. The majority of it was outside, but it was the weaker part of the blade. However, if it was turned perpendicular, the well-tempered steel should endure… he hoped.

He pressed the blade against the frame and slid it upward. The steel clinked against the iron, and Jack kept lifting until the bolt budged. He winced at a faint sound of the bolt grating against a ring, but moved the bolt as far as the door's plank allowed, rested it again on the rings, and withdrew the blade from the gap. Then he remembered to breathe.

He put the dagger aside and brought his ear to the slit. There were distant laughings and voices from the beach, and much nearer bird chatterings in the thicket. Snoring next to the door would be too much to ask… On the other hand, neither did he hear "Hey, what's going on here!" So far.

Jack sat down more comfortably, flexed his fingers and picked up the dagger again.

"Three dozen?" he asked, sliding the blade against the frame.

José, long ago bored with the pirate's doings, gave up trying to nestle his old bones more comfortably on the hard ground, and closed his eyes. It was probably well after noon…

"Huh?" He woke.

"You said there's three dozen of them." Jack watched the slowly moving metal.

"Four, mebbe. Or more. Didn' report 'emselves t'me," José grunted. He wished to doze through the sweltering hours before evening.

"Few…" The bolt stopped, stuck on a bigger notch. Then it slid off to a loud clang. Jack almost bit off his tongue.

"Three dozen of damned Limeys is enough t'me. Oh, an' remember I'm Smith!"

"Which one?" Jack muttered.

"Huh?"

"Nevermin'. So t'was no one but 'em, all the week?" The blade repeated its laborious half-inch track; the bolt rasping quietly at each one.

"One can hardly see 'rough the walls."

"And what one can hear?" Half inch, and another, and again… Time seemed to stretch into the same increments as the black metal crawling beyond the gap.

"Dat 'ey hadn' cleared out so far," José snarled.

"No shootin'?"

"Echo's carryin' at times from the forest. An' mebbe two days ago… no, three. T'was rumblin' nearby, from dat guns on 'eir boat, like as not."

"How long?" The bolt was now noticeably less weighty at the frame's side.

"Fired twice, methinks…"

Another turn, and again… and the bolt's end appeared through the gap. Jack pushed it along, until the blade lost contact.

He carefully moved away from the door, and hid his dagger back. Then he picked his hat, rose and walked to the window. He measured the distance to the forest for the last time.

Thirty, maybe forty men. They must have quite a toll along the way. He had seen carpenters onboard, when walking through the camp; certainly there were at least several more men at the bilge pumps. There were no more than twenty in the camp itself, and probably some in the forest. How many would be armed? And after a week of anxious tension in the relative idleness…

"They don't know the place well," he said. "The farther, the less."

"Damn you, lemme sleep at la—!"

"Shut your big mouth, José," a voice raspy from disuse cut in. Jack turned his head. Jorge was gazing at him, acknowledging him for the first time.

"The forest is just beyond the wall," Jack said. He slowly stepped back, his eyes fixed on Jorge's. Now the all three were watching him. He backed up to near the door.

"Between trees they'll be hinderin' each other." He donned his hat. "Yet better not to count on them giving up."

He grinned slowly. Gold shined in the dusk.

The next moment the door banged against the wall from outside, almost tearing it off its hinges.

José, Jorge and Jacinto stood stunned for three heartbeats before they rushed to follow the pirate. Outside, the guard struggled up from the ground, searching for what had just snatched the stool from under him. Sobering quickly, he leapt up and… collided with Jacinto. He only managed to utter an alarming cry.

In a short time, the beach resembled a brothel on fire. Yells and shots would have drowned out the chattering of the birds if they hadn't already fallen silent, frightened. A rumble on the gangplank announced the men working onboard had joined the chase. Crackles and curses came from the thicket, where all ran into each other, stumbled over roots, snagged musket barrels against branches, and took the pursuers for pursued. Nevertheless, the all racket moved away, until at last the lapping of waves was the predominant sound and the first squawks came shyly from trees.

The open door budged, and a scrap of faded red silk followed by an eye appeared over the edge. No "Here he is! Take him!" was heard, so the door moved from the wall. Jack Sparrow slipped from behind it, hat in hand again. He put it on and grinned, surveying the deserted camp.

Just as he had expected. A week of constant awareness of Tortuga's proximity had its effect. The brig's crew had time to hear and brood over what would occur if the captives escaped. The pursuit would be long and fervent, in spite of growing hopelessness as time passed. Most importantly it engaged them all, because all of their lives depended on it, from the highest ranked to the lowest swab.

The guard sprawled on the ground. It looked like his head would give him hell, once he'd woke up. If he'd woke up. No need for his pockets' contents to add to his bruises, Jack decided.

Raising from a crouch, the guard's musket in hand, he looked to the other side of the camp. The table still was under the tree, with no maps though. Here and there laid a few guns, apparently forgotten in haste. He resisted the itch to bury them in the campfires' ashes in case some officer recalled the camp had been left unguarded. So, with an armful of muskets and pistols, Jack trudged toward the water.

A little time later, sneaking between boulders at the cliff's feet, he raised his eyes at the brig, and grinned again.

One should never flee to where one will be pursued.


	9. Chapter 9

The afternoon sun immersed the bay's surface and brig in its hot glare. The light glimmered on the skin of one not entirely clothed but entirely wet pirate, his teeth clenched in effort as he searched for irregularities on the stern. It was too scantily carved for his taste, especially at that moment.

Having reached a transverse parapet, he clung to the rough wood and tried to persuade himself that, to the casual observer, he surely looked like a decorative triton. There was one problem in this camouflage however, worse than his missing tail and trident: namely the absence of any other triton on the brig's keel. To tell the truth, Jack Sparrow felt rather like a starfish on the rocks after the ebb.

He raised his head and saw a big Y with remains of white paint. He looked to the left, in search of the inscription's beginning. _M… E… R… CURY._ Jack snorted under his breath. Well, invention was not popular in the Company, contrary to avarice. It looked as though they had begun to save names too.

He moved on. The casement was just above the letters, separated by another quite comfortable parapet. He listened, and then peeped through the corner pane. It seemed there was no one in the cabin. He followed the window's frame with his eyes. There was no need to use his dagger, the farthest sash was ajar. He checked himself. Most of seawater on his skin was already gone, but he squeezed yet a good half pint from his hair.

Slipping down from the broad windowsill to the deck, its planks warm under his bare feet, he surveyed the cabin. It spanned the stern's entire width, but was not very deep. A half-drawn curtain hid a small alcove and its built-in bunk. The opposite wall was occupied by a cupboard with a glass paneled front. A sturdy table with three chairs and chests wedged under the windowsill left barely enough room to walk to the door. Jack put his ear to it.

All sounds came from afar and were muffled; the captain's cabin was probably separated from the main deck by another cabin or corridor. There was silence on the upper deck, and some distant knocking or occasional footsteps below, in the brig's huge belly. The quarterdeck was apparently deserted, the work going on below. The only distinguishable voices came from the main deck. A sharp tone receded and returned.

"Recall… around the camp… reports in every…"

The second voice seemed to throw in only hasty affirmations. Another one, more distant, interrupted, and the first two faded as they went below.

Jack turned from the door to the table. It was covered with maps, weighted at the edges by a pewter candlestick, a couple of mugs, and… Jack's own pistol. Not touching it, he walked around the table.

Hispaniola was on the very top of the pile. The sea to the north and east of the island was crossed with a maze of pencil lines and coordinates. Next to the map, a pile of paper scraps with scribbled notes covered a sheet showing the outline of the bay with groups of numbers inside. Had they tried to sound the reef and lagoon? Jack picked up the mug placed on the map's cartouche. The Company's sign, again. He lifted the corner and the next. Jamaica, then Mexico with the Gulf's basin… At the very bottom was a big sheet depicting the eastern half of Cuba and western coast of Hispaniola. _Mercury_'s Captain had the hand of a drunken fly dipped in rum, Jack decided irritably, squinting at the vague pencil marks.

He stooped to look under where the maps hung over the table. The drawer there wasn't locked, probably because there was nothing interesting inside. Jack moved aside a worn compass and brass sextant, rummaging through sheets of clean paper, a bunch of quills, and a few sticks of red wax. He slid the drawer closed and looked again around the cabin.

The cupboard's casement door was secured only by a simple latch, same as the lids of the wooden boxes piled inside. He opened one to a shining rainbow of cut glass goblets nestled in padded compartments. Another box was filled with silver spoons. Jack cursed his temporary lack of pockets.

Atop the cupboard sat an inkwell, a sandbox, a quill knife… A door below was flanked by drawers. He crouched and tugged the door's knob. Closed. The lock wasn't very complicated, as Jack judged some minute later, tucking the dagger back into its sheath at his ankle.

The opened cabinet revealed a heap of pewter and silver plates. The back wall was unexpectedly near. Jack tilted his head thoughtfully, and knocked on the wood. It resounded with a hollow tone. He traced the corners with his fingers, though with little hope. The lever opening the cache was probably hidden elsewhere. The nearest drawer yielded easily, showing a bunch of spare candles. Just in case, he fingered the drawer's bottom and back wall, and then closed it. The next held only a leather-bound volume. Jack snatched it, opened, and grinned. Finally, the brig's logbook.

He leafed through it, searching the early entries. London, over a year ago. Gibraltar, Accra… Three men and the foremast lost in a storm off the Cape… Two weeks in Cape Town and another try to round the Cape… A Portuguese privateer east of Madagascar, gave up the chase after two hours… Jack turned pages faster and faster, catching fragments of notes. The brig's Captain did not always have good ink at hand, but at least he scribbled here more carefully than the maps. Bombay, three weeks… _The cargo collected and safe._ Apart from that terse notation, there was no more than a course registration, back south, under a date a half a year since. Two months later, _an undisturbed passing round the Cape, the cargo still in good shape_, then again two days in Cape Town. They were in haste…

"Ahoy, _Mercury_!"

Startled, Jack snapped the log shut. The hail came from somewhere at the stern. He crept up to the casement, hiding behind the frame. Almost out of his eyeshot, a narrow stern and a tiller bobbed on the water. The rest of the boat was hidden by the brig's bulk, but the shadow on water was a single mast. He squinted and frowned. Over there, above the larboard side, did he see what he thought he saw? Could it be…?

"Ahoy, pinnace…" The Captain's voice hesitated, as if in surprise, and then added: "In my cabin, now! Only you, Mr. Anderson, if you please."

Jack was to the cupboard before the 'now' sounded. He shut the door and drawer with the log, and looked around frantically. The cramped cabin allowed few possibilities… The bunk? He jerked the curtain aside and raised his brows in surprise at finding not only a tousled bedding, but also a dark emptiness underneath. More than five inches left unused? That was unexpected, but well, all the better.

He squeezed in as far as possible, and drew the curtain. Then he lay flat to the planks, peeked under the fabric's edge, and… his eyes widened at seeing why the niche had been empty. Under the table sat a wooden box the same length as the bunk; rolls of maps stuck out from its half-opened lid. Jack felt suddenly too warm in his hideout, probably due to his fervent hope the brig's Captain wouldn't bother to tidy up just then. Judging on the amount of dust he lay in, the hope was quite justified. His eyes watered as he tried to hold an impending sneeze, hearing quick steps and a clang of the door knob.

Some shuffling and knocking announced the maps and paperweights being moved. Then glass clinked. Jack clutched the noisiest parts of his hair, and carefully moved to where the gap under the curtain widened.

Hair tousled, breeches wrinkled and shirt disheveled, the brig's Captain stood by the cupboard, filling a mug from a glass decanter with something appealingly amber-coloured. Apparently he had been sleeping through the hottest hours, and had been wakened with the news of captives' escape. At the sound of more steps he turned toward the door.

"You had better have a bloody good reason," he said in a sharp tone. He raised the mug to his mouth, while setting the decanter onto the table with a loud thump.

The incomer shut the doors behind him.

"It's nice to see you as well," he replied. The undisturbed calm in his voice was quite convincing, so long as one didn't look at his fingers, tapping against guard of a small side sword. The hat in his other hand, soiled stockings, and dusty boots called to mind José's mention of something about a dandy.

„The guests were impressed with the welcome, no doubt," added the owner of worn splendor.

"It's not me who's a diplomat here." The Captain waved his mug, annoyed.

"As we both know," agreed the other in a tone that could be sold in place of silk.

The Captain seemed to ease a little. He slumped into a chair and eyed the mug he turned in his hands.

"Anderson," he said wearily. "You getting lost for over four days – and I can assure you a day counts doubly in this damned wilderness – coming back bringing what we already have more than enough, in place of what you went for, and you expect fanfares? Who are they and what are they doing here?"

The light reflected in Anderson's gray eyes, emphasizing his bony face, as he gazed toward the window. He seemed scraggy indeed, as José suggested. "Tools," he said after a time. "They don't need fanfares." He looked at the Captain again. "So you have more than enough of those?" A fine thread of sarcasm now intertwined the silk.

"Witnesses," the Captain snarled. "We don't need more witnesses. We've barely enough men to patrol the forest. I can only hope they won't overlook any random idler, including those on water. We took one boat only with an eighteen-pounder, three days ago. Have you any idea how far the retort carries?"

"Not as far as to Tortuga, I assure."

"To the nearest unseen ears would be enough. Pray assure me rather that you know what you are doing. So far, I can see only two additional problems needing attention. Give me a reason why I should not get rid of them straightaway."

"Because you can always do it later. For now, the tools can be useful."

The Captain cursed under his breath and snatched up the decanter. This time, when he put it back, it thumped even louder. "No more than two hours ago I thought the same," he hissed. "And now I have five men below, because the rest are running to and fro in the forest, bumping into trees and shooting at each other. Cause I begrudged rope for four nooses."

Anderson lifted a brow. "Four?"

"I was beginning to think you wouldn't return, and the only hope would be examining new captives. One straggler arrived today, so I left him for a more convenient time..."

Under the bunk, Jack managed to squeeze two inches deeper and tried to turn into a dust ball.

Anderson sighed and drew another chair. "The thief is dead," he said, sitting down.

The Captain looked at him askew. "And the bad news?"

"That is the bad news." Anderson dropped his hat onto the nearest sea chest." The corpse was found in Tortuga, before I managed to find him alive, that is."

For a long moment the Captain stared at the mug he held, frowning. "Speaking of Tortuga, isn't there any—?"

"There is one horse trader. The thief didn't contact him, at least recently. And yes, I'm sure," Anderson added, seeing the Captain was about to speak. "For God's sake, Walter, yes, I do know what I'm doing. I'm on this ship for some reason."

He leaned back and crossed his arms. "However, it seems he contacted nearly half of Tortuga."

The Captain looked around distractedly, maybe in search of his handkerchief, for having found nothing, he wiped his face with a slightly trembling hand. "Great…" he muttered. "Surely you'll explain why said half of Tortuga isn't dropping anchor beyond the reef and smashing us into splinters?"

"Oddly enough, it seems the thief didn't mention us. Reportedly, he was searching for someone himself."

"Searching?"

"Those two promise they know and are able to find this someone." Anderson hesitated almost imperceptibly. "Anyway, now it's the only clue."

The Captain was silent for some time. Then he stood, went to the window, and opened it wide. He rubbed his face again. "Keep an eye on them," he said, staring into the distance. "But every additional day is a risk. Dammit, Jonathan, every additional hour!" He glanced back at the cabin. "And that, um, horse trader…"

Anderson rolled his eyes. "Yes, I began to think about that, too. Forget it. The best horse on Tortuga is three guineas, and worth no more than one. It's a gelding, roughly ten years old, and waxed with shoe blacking. After the first rain it'll be a dun, and molted at that." He sighed and turned toward the table. He took the nearest mug, looked into it dubiously, and reached for the decanter.

"I know De Villiers," he said, pouring. "Maniac he is, but not a fool, not to such an extent. He had enough time to recover and realise that it won't end with a gift and one or two, hmm, favours. They anticipated it, of course, so combined with the gift, he'll get a polite message explaining there are ways for different views on him could begin to circulate in Versailles, lest he changed his mind. A threat of suspicion of high treason is supposed to work as a catalyst for real high treason. To quote what I was told when receiving orders in London, which I bloody hope to see again: _Isn't it artistic, Mr. Anderson?_"

He drank, grimaced, and added: "This voyage is not as much diplomacy, as a demonstration of power."

The Captain snorted and sat back on his chair. "So it seems London overestimated this power," he huffed angrily. "The only thing we can demonstrate now is a keel leaking like a sieve, and an empty hold, less than a hundred miles from the goal!"

Anderson shrugged. "We could have lost the horse during any of the previous fifteen thousand."

"If I had a choice, that would be easier to explain," the Captain muttered. "How many times have I said one is too few?"

"Forgive me, I didn't count. And it was not my decision." Anderson took the decanter again. "This way or that, it boils down to we have no other choice. The governor will get his purebred _kathiawari_, hooves polished, tail braided, silver tack included, so he can nestle his French arse on mahogany and maroquin. That way he cannot find the least gap to wriggle out from the deal, a gap for which he's currently seeking harder than anything in his life, I can assure you, Walter. He'll get the _kathiawari_, brisk and bucking, or we can save London the effort, and deliver our heads on a tray straight off."

He tossed his drink down, coughed, and added hoarsely: "Providing we'll manage to get them out of here."

The Captain snorted even louder. "Jonathan, talking rubbish after a couple sips sets new record for you. Do you remember where we are? Even in these parts, an alive horse is worth more than a dead one, but a saddle…? There has to be more fake shillings for two hundred miles, or livres, all the same. De Villiers may eventually get his saddle in taxes."

Anderson fidgeted on his chair and mumbled, losing some of his ostensible stoicism for the first time. "That would be, uh, rather unfortunate turn of…"

The Captain scrutinized him suspiciously.

Anderson caught himself tapping his fingers on the tabletop and pressed his palm flat. "The saddle was an additional, um, precaution, in case I died en route and could not deliver London's message in person."

The Captain stared at him a long while. "Instead, unfortunately, you turned more proof than the beast," he drawled finally. "At least against kidnappings."

Anderson send him a sullen look. "There was a hidden compartment with a letter in the saddle's front bow. It could be unlocked as long as one knows Latin."

"How about unlocking as long as one knows saddles?"

"Uh, well, that cannot be counted out…"

The Captain was gradually taking an interesting shade of crimson. "Is there anything else I don't know about?" he asked in a stony calm tone.

Anderson already looked as if his chair sprouted thorns. "Everyone has their orders!" he exploded. "And the Company's arms are long!"

At last, the Captain moved his gaze away, and fixed it unseeingly at a bulkhead. "Here and now, we are the Company's arms," he said. "Let's get the horse back, and I'll haul anchor within the hour, with or without the saddle."

The silence was broken by knock at the door.

"Sir?" a voice asked and the hinges creaked. Jack risked moving closer to the gap, but the door was still out of eyesight.

The Captain raised his head. "Ah, right. Put it over there." He waved his hand.

"Yes, sir." Something clinked, and the same voice added: "The cook begs to say that dinner for Mr. Anderson will be in—"

He was interrupted by a rapid thud of approaching steps.

"Captain!" A man shoved the steward off his way, then checked himself and stepped back onto the threshold. "Er, permissiontospeak, sir!" he threw out, nodding hastily. At the Captain's impatient grunt and a wave of hand, he continued, breathless. "Pumps... This time two... at once, sir! One has broken, the other... is clogged."

The Captain cursed and frowned. "So what are you doing here, Mr. Sanders? Don't you all know your work?"

Sanders, wet to his thighs and smelling definitely bilge-like, shuffled his feet and coughed nervously. "The men, sir... They're sayin' that once we've one pump fixed, right away the other breaks, and, uh..."

"So fix the other too, dammit! You need a written order on a silver tray every time, or are you expecting commendations?" The Captain stared at him in astonishment.

Sanders backed a step. "Well, the men are sayin' that tools, uh, keep getting' lost. Uh, in water, I mean. They're sayin' the bay is cursed, with those, uh, dead uns down there. Ashee is sayin' that sooner or later the leaks will gush blood, and then we'll all be dead buggers as well. And he's swearin' he found... Yesterday, I mean... Swearin' that he found, uh, long hair in the slime..." His voice subsided little by little.

The Captain was silent a while, and then cursed fiercely. "Just what we needed..." he muttered. "Get below," he ordered. "I'll be there directly."

Jack, along whose calf something multipede had been crawling for some time, almost supported him aloud.

"And you're to warn them that if I find one empty-handed and idle, any curse will be the least of his worries!" The Captain growled, rising. "Carry on!"

"Yessir!" Sanders rushed out of the cabin, shoving the steward aside once more, judging by an outraged "Oi!", leaving only a cloud of _eau de bilgé_ in the air.

"Ashee? Ashvapal?" Anderson seemed surprised. He reached for his hat and rose from his chair, too. "You're keeping him still down there?"

"A groom without a horse is a useless ballast," the Captain snapped. "Ah yes, my hat..." He turned back from the door.

Jack silently gave a rightful share of damnation both to him and the 'something' that just stopped on his knee and was considering its further course.

"And if not those ideas of his— how did it go? That the horse needs something familiar on back? —the saddle would be still in the cache!" The Captain gestured toward the cupboard.

"Nevertheless, the beast did calm down," Anderson pointed out.

"Aye, just enough to allow a stranger! Where have I left my coat?"

The boots thudded past the bunk. Jack held his breath, shut his eyes tight, and tried to recall some gods which he possibly had yet to vex.

"Until we regain the horse, this damned heathen won't poke his nose above the gun deck, even if he has to seal leaks with his own rags, including that bloody turban of his." The voice went away. Jack dared to open one eye.

"It's you who's supposed to know about Indians," the Captain hissed, struggling into a heavily gilded coat. "Stop him from telling the men bullshit, or I can decide I also have one temporarily useless diplomat onboard."

It was visible that Anderson clenched his teeth. He straightened and donned his hat. "And an agent of the East India Trading Company," he said icily. "Do not forget it, Captain."

The door slammed after them. The following silence lasted a whole minute. Then one very dusty pirate shot out from under the bunk, tangling in the curtain. He managed to get free, leapt to his feet, and surveyed his skin frantically. After the third attempt to see his own back, he surrendered and glanced anxiously to the door. Suddenly he stood still and grinned at the sight of a tray on a chair.

A golden roasted carcass, probably once a duck. Next to it was a small basket with bread and an opened bottle of wine. Jack glanced at the door again.

Some time later, he set it ajar to make the mysterious vanishing dinner apparently less mysterious. Two ship cats were already waiting at the threshold, eager to offer a helpful paw to the crime. Jack told them "Bon appétit", gaining aggrieved glares from over the bare bones, took his pistol and climbed onto the windowsill.

xxx

Last wafts of a light breeze had died some time ago; the close air hovered over the sea's surface. Lazy waves licked the sand a few yards from the pirate's feet.

Sitting on a miniature beach, Jack stared at clouds rising from the horizon and absentmindedly wiped the flash pan of his pistol. Its other parts, along with a small powder box, laid on his sash, spread on the ground next to the recovered cutlass. The dagger was not the only thing Fred had overlooked. Jack had already checked to see the box was full and the powder dry.

The rock niche in which he harbored was framed by high cliffs; some two hundred yards of stone and deep water dividing it from the nearest land, he had made sure of that. It meant the weapon would need drying again in the near future, but he needed an occupation for his hands while his eyes wandered the horizon.

The obsession of Guillaume de Villiers, the ten-year governor of Port-au-Prince, was famous across the Caribbean. Rusty Hans had needed only a mug of rum to tell tales about the governor's stables, his face as blissful, as if Heaven's gate appeared. "Mangers of polished stone!" he said dreamily. "Pastures broader than the whole port!" "And bloody well guarded," he added, in an expert tone, with a trace of regret. De Villiers' ambition was to collect the bloodstock of every breed, equine aristocracy and elite of steeds. If all of a sudden he saw the prospect of… What did they say? _Kahee…_ no, _kathiawari_. Maybe from the Mughal emperor's stables, beyond the French reach? If a tenth of what one heard about De Villiers was true, he would drool first, and only then think about the price. The price? _Oh, Your Excellency, it was just a little gift between gentlemen!_

Few things are more costly than free gifts.

What could they demand? _Oh, monsieur, we wouldn't dare bothering you with anything important. You could perhaps discreetly point out to your brave corsairs that the Company's ships are not rewarding targets with so many more Spanish ones around. Your Excellency could also turn a blind eye to one or another bay where we'll moor a bit longer… and perhaps set a warehouse or three._

And a year later – four… forty warehouses, docks… more and more ships, more and more precise maps with the triple sign. Years would pass, and Versailles and Madrid would begin to talk about a war, the war that London planned from the beginning.

"It's just good business," a voice from the depth of his memory whispered. Jack lowered his eyes to the barrel gripped in his hand. He lifted it and checked its clearance.

That Ashee was right, he thought. The bay already ran with blood, and there would be more. Eighteen-pounders… From the beach he had counted ten gun ports on the larboard. The guns to starboard, toward the reef, he had seen as he climbed the stern, their lids open. They were terrified enough to keep the guns at the ready all the time.

Anamaria often supplied Jorge with fish, he recalled.

Metal and wood clinked softly as he reassembled the pistol. Then he gathered his clothes from where he had spread them on boulders. He threw them against the rock-walled niche's farthest side, and lay down on the makeshift bedding, covering himself with his coat. He guessed the brig's crew would give up the chase by night, but there was at least an hour yet to twilight.

He stared gloomily at the sea, listening to the first heavy drops of rain. His every hair raised and blood boiled at the thought of what he was going to do. Why it was every encounter with the East India Trading Company made him do things unthinkable for a self-respecting pirate?

He shut his eyes.


	10. Chapter 10

The last clouds were long gone. Stars shone in the clear sky, the night idyllic and dreamy. In the horse's opinion, mostly dreamy. He gazed gloomily at the silhouette that had just woken him.

Jack Sparrow was doubtfully examining the bridle. It seemed to be made of ridiculous amount of parts, unlike, say, a decent rigging. The ornaments and spangle garlands dangling all over it complicated the matter even more, but he was almost sure the long metal piece was intended for the mouth. He glanced at the sleepily swaying muzzle and felt a sudden rush of hearty attachment to all ten of his fingers.

"You'd be janglin' and glitterin' like a Spanish infanta on her dad's coronation," he said. "And anyway, they don't expect to see it ever again, do they? It's rude – to disappoint people, especially the Company's people, especially in consideration of Tortuga's reputation, savvy?"

The replying huff was suspiciously alike to snoring.

Jack rolled his eyes and went toward the shed. "Brisk and bucking, eh? Well, you cope fine with sheds attackin' from behind, same for the Company's agents," he chuckled. "D'like to know how long were they congratulatin' to each other in His Enlightened Majesty's stables, once that brig had disappeared beyond the horizon, together with you and your, ahem, little fear."

This time the huff was louder.

"Oh right, right… If asked, I'll be tellin' you've got the fiery temperament, literally."

The basic building philosophy on Tortuga was: if it stands for five minutes, certainly it will stand forever. Considering the shed not only had stood this morning but also survived till now, Jack took it off his list of the most unreliable structures in the neighbourhood. At least it didn't take on water. He knelt in the corner and put the coiled bridle back under the saddle. After short hesitation he reached for the knob. It was too dark inside to see anything, but he fingered the folded paper for awhile, and finally shoved it under his shirt. Then he turned and groped on the ground. Somewhere there should be that length of…

Rope in hand, he returned to the horse, walking around the rump in a wide circle, and cautiously patted the warm shoulder. "Come on, wake up. You'll sleep it off during the day, you can believe the expert."

The horse snorted.

Jack rolled his eyes again. "And ya think I'm delighted? A self-respecting pirate giving back his swag?!"

One hirsute ear stood straight up. Its curly end looked like a question mark.

"Uh, right, other's swag…"

Another snort. The whites of the big eyes flashed as the muzzle evaded the oncoming loop.

"Not swag? Dear mate? Sure, you're good chap, whatever. Oh come on, d'ya know what stables De Villiers has? I've, er… heard myself. And he's not very weighty. Well, wasn't once. Anyway he could lose weight, or try to. Give 'im a chance. You haven't even gotten to know each other yet. You'll see the pastures and decide if the company suits you. An' d'ya know how many mares there is? Blondes, brunettes, ginger, freckled…!" Jack grabbed the horse's mane and stood on his toes. "Come on, bow your head. No, no steppin' back!"

One eye blinked at the loop's knot. Jack suddenly remembered the hooves and tried to jump back without losing his grip on the mane.

"Mate, they're longin' for ya like Davy Jones for a debtor. You'll see, just a short time and it'll be Port-au-Prince and you'll kick them in farewell. Not that you'd have to bother anyway, that tub of their doesn't need much more… Nonono, stop! No worries, she surely will manage these few miles yet! Well, she should. Providin' they'll set off soon, the sooner the better. An' without ya they won't set off at all! They'll put roots into that reef and will blaze at everythin' movin'. They'll kill Anamaria. An' then Anamaria will kill me. Come on, you'll save all and will be a hero. Dunno what for. Don't ask me!"

The loop passed over the ears at last. Jack hastily pulled it down and clenched the free end like on an unexpectedly gifted bottle. Just in case, he backed away as far as the rope allowed.

"See? That was the hardest part," he announced in the tone of manic cheerfulness. The horse, already calmly standing, blinked suspiciously.

xxx

The next part was the hardest too.

"Come on, you walked this way once."

"…"

"Really, in the opposite direction."

"…"

"Maybe he tied your eyes? No offence, mate, but it wouldn't help me."

"…"

"Can lend you my hat…"

xxx

And the next one too.

"Ei, be careful with this tail slappin', will ya?"

"…"

"No, don't turn…!" NononoNO, here's two hundred feet down!"

"…"

"Cause it's dark! Ya should be glad you can't see it! Just mind where you're steppin', right?"

"…"

"Owww! An' on what are you steppin'…"

xxx

And the next…

"Mud, so what? Would ya rather trip on these rocks up there? An' don't splash so much, thank you kindly."

"…"

"Ya could at least be grateful y'aren't luggin' that gala dress of yours. Ya know what it means, eh? Means that's me who'll have to lug it later. Good thirty pounds of silver."

"…"

"Not mentionin' the wood…"

xxx

Far on the horizon, a pale strip of dawn marked where sea and sky merged, but the road, sluggish after the rain, was still deep in the night.

About a mile from the bay was fine, Jack decided. First was to fasten the horse somewhere, and then shoot. Before leaving Hans' valley, he had pulled the bullet from his pistol and tucked it in his deepest pocket. Better to move away some hundred yards and then fire, he reckoned. The beast would be less frightened. Besides, one never knew where the nearest patrol might be and how much time he had to flee. A thicker tree would be best, lest the horse break off the twigs before they arrived…

A sufficient one was over there. Jack walked to it; the horse tramping behind. The darkness was its deepest at that part of the road, the crowns of the trees joining overhead. Jack reached for the trunk and… froze. He listened for a few heartbeats and then hastily pulled the horse behind the tree. Half-consciously, he embraced the big head and put a hand over the warm muzzle.

Short time later, what he had heard became discernible words, approaching.

"Why not a day more? They would pay." The voice put to mind the finest claret's hue, if it could be turned into sound. It also had a very expensive diction.

"With a noose." This one was rather cheap ale or tannery's sewage.

"We could still—"

"I do judging. You had a lesson not long ago." A looming shadow moved fast down the road.

The other, following him, stopped in a not so dark spot. "He did pay once," it said, crossing arms.

Even among wet foliage and mud, Edward Wessley managed to look county. The pale shine of stars lightened the white lace and, when he tilted his head, an ostrich feather on his hat waved. The same feather Jack had glimpsed on the pinnace by the brig yesterday.

Skiver Ed stopped too, and turned back. "What if he'd known?"

"But he didn't." The tone was defiant, but Wessley averted his eyes.

"Wrong answer." Skiver's voice was even. "What if he'd known?"

Wessley turned his head, as if drawn by an invisible leash. He rested a hand on his sword's guard. "I would have taken it on my own," he hissed, his eyes fixed on Skiver's this time.

"We wouldn' be here if you hadn't already taken somethin' on your own," Skiver said in the same calm tone. Not changing it, he added: "Get out, Sparrow."

Jack didn't move, not counting his eyes widening for a moment.

Skiver turned his head and gazed straight at him. "You can sneak like a ghost, but not with a horse," he explained almost affably. "As they say in Virginia."

Rumours were that Skiver Ed was once a guide in the endless British-French-Iroquoian war, and came to the Caribbean fleeing the noose as the result of his chronic indecision as to which side paid better. A reasonable move, in Jack's opinion, considering there were more sides in the Caribbean. And if Skiver confirmed any rumour concerning him, it meant he wouldn't bet a fake pence on the expected length of Jack's life.

Considering all of that took the pirate a half second. Another half he spared for weighing the dubious advantage of the dark – and confined – shelter of the thicket, over the open space of the road. Then he withdrew his hand from his pistol and stepped out with a wide grin and even wider spread arms. The horse followed.

"Roads are crowded 'hese days... er, nights as if paved with shillings," Jack exclaimed merrily. Neither had drawn a weapon yet, he noticed with an ocean of relief and a droplet of offence.

"Indeed," came from the dark across the road. Something long hit Skiver's chest, and he reflexively caught it. Jack wrinkled his nose. Pitch? A tarry splint?

"Light it up." The order was supported with the click of a gun being cocked. Skiver hesitated then reached to his pocket without a word.

Sparks hissed and died in the stuffy air. Finally, the torch flared into a hot flickering glow. The surrounding darkness thickened and turned into a welter of shimmering shadows.

Anderson emerged from one and stopped just beyond the brightest circle of light. The pistol in his left hand was aimed at Skiver; the right held a sword on Wessley.

"What didn't I know?" the agent asked.

Skiver eyed him. "That we'd find him sooner than you could expect, sir?" he offered, slightly jerking his head toward Jack. "Or that we wish to raise the price?"

The pistol didn't budge; the blade lifted a bit. "What did I not know? I will not ask the third time."

Skiver nodded and smirked. "As you like." The 'sir' vanished; maybe it never existed.

"Ya didn't know one doesn't make business with Ugly, and later ya didn'—" Jack shut his eyes tight, and opened them again immediately. A sword point hovered an inch from his nose. The pirate tried to take a careful breath and felt something warm flowing down his cheek.

Judging on how Anderson sprang back, he hadn't noticed Wessley unsheathing his blade too. Jack fleetingly wondered which of his statements was the reason, providing Wessley had guessed what the second was going to be.

"Drop it!" the agent growled, casting an anxious glance somewhere behind Jack. At the horse, the pirate realised.

Wessley looked at Skiver, standing with imperturbable ease, torch in hand. Skiver turned his eyes to Anderson.

Jack sighed discreet relief when the blade moved away from his face in a smooth arc toward the agent. This time Anderson didn't step back. It was his third serious mistake that night, in Jack's private opinion, after following the pair of 'tools' sneaking out from camp, and his stubborn inquisitiveness. Or maybe the fourth: revealing himself?

"The price is still negotiable," Skiver said. "This time not only for him and the horse." He flashed a wolfish smile. "I won't make the offer a third time."

Anderson frowned. "Why should I be interested in your price now?" he snarled.

Skiver's smile didn't waver. "Cause y'want to know how far the rumours about you have spread. You won't set off till dawn. That's enough time to ask 'im and enough to get the answer. But without us you won't be sure he's not lyin'."

Jack bit his lip. All this was taking a very alarming course.

Anderson snorted. "And with you, I will?"

_"Nahin."_

Three heads turned as one. Skiver eyed Jack askance, but said nothing. Anderson stared at the pirate as if noticing him for the first time.

Jack glanced at Skiver. "Amazin' how everyone deems me a spring of knowledge lately. How flatterin'," he huffed with irritation. Then he turned to Anderson and switched to Hindi again. _"Tum pekd nahin… You will not. They know you do not like witness any."_

It was hellishly difficult, to keep the eye contact with Anderson, mind Skiver's face and Wessley's hands, and recall a language he had not used in almost fifteen years, mostly a gutter version at that. Some distant part of his mind registered a tense trembling of the horse's chest behind him and the regular puff on his hair. _Sniffing the fire or blood?_, a vague thought flashed and ran away. He shot a beamy grin at the agent. _"Your... you not had time, did not take no one with you, right? Men with the camp. You alone. And one shot. Not enough."_

Anderson watched him thoughtfully. _"Two is enough,"_ he replied at last in the same language. His gaze moved for a moment to Jack's belt and back to the pirate's eyes.

Jack's grin widened. He wasn't exactly fond of the Company, but liked its agents – they always took him for a fool. _"Is delight to hit an understanding with you, Mister—!"_

"Shut up, Sparrow. Traded stuff doesn' talk," Skiver cut in. He cast a suspicious look at Anderson, then at Jack. "Whatever game you're tryin' here, quit it. What you think? Who will get out of this alive?"

Jack looked in turn at each of them. "Choose, y'all," he said. And then he snatched Wessley's hat and threw it onto the torch.

Skiver, startled, dropped it, the mud snuffing the flame immediately. The following darkness was absolute for eyes accustomed to the light. The sticky smell of tar mingled with the stench of burning feathers, and then the heavy smoke of powder when a shot fired. A flame flashed in the gloom, then metal rasped on metal, followed by a half-finished curse and stifled groan. There was a sound of something torn and a short crack...

Jack didn't hear it. His world was limited to the thud of hooves, splattering mud, lashing branches, the wind howling in his ears, and above all, a feeling that all of last year's storms had gathered under him and were doing their best to crush his bones. He had no idea by what a miracle he had managed to get onto the horse and refused to worry about how the horse, running like a devil, managed to find his way in the dark. The thing only he was sure of was that Hell could froze before he would release the arm around the horse's neck. The other hand clasped his hat in place, his eyes shut tight.

So he kept his eyes shut and tried to not bit off his tongue, ignoring protests of his creaking ribs and some more precious parts being turned into what felt like mincemeat. His last sober thoughts had been left somewhere behind and the mad hurricane bucked under him, running on and on...

xxx

All eternity seemed to have passed until Jack realised the world had ceased moving, and the hot mass of muscles and bones under him stood panting. He tried to swallow, found his mouth sand dry, and made a brave decision to crack one eye open, then the other. He lifted his head and spat a few strands of hair, his or the horse's, he wasn't sure.

The eternity had to last some half an hour, cause his surroundings were more grey than black. A golden-scarlet glow spilled across the sky, the last shadows retreating the thickets. The reddish mud separated from the pale trunks and the foliage gradually grew green.

The road was little broader where the horse stood. Straight ahead of his muzzle, a pair of boulders framed a narrow path where it branched from the main track. It ran to the east-southeast, Jack remembered, then turned south, into Hispaniola's heart.

He stared dully at the strip of mud between the boulders and where it disappeared among the trees. At last he sighed and rested his hands on the horse's nape.

"Mebbe you're right," he said wearily. "Tis' not about one battered boat stuck on the reef. Once they get away, t'will be only the beginning."

He ran a hand over his chest, making the paper under his shirt rustle. "He knew he'd gotten into something nasty," he murmured. "Thought when I read it to him, it would... what?"

He fixed his unseeing gaze at the mud by the horse's hooves. And then he clenched his teeth in a sudden surge of seething rage. "It's just a bloody paper," he hissed, "and bloody ink. Bloody calligraphed diplomacy, wrapped in silver, guarded with iron and lead. The Company, a favour, oh _monsieur_, a high treason! All that's just bloody words!" He flashed his teeth in a wild grin. "Fine."

He set his hat straight and looked down. The rope was gone from the horse's neck. No matter. He tugged a handful of mane and pointed to the path with his other hand. "Go on, mate. Full ahead!" he ordered and straightened proudly.

He had only enough time to open his eyes wide, when he realised the horse's sweaty coat was slicker than it had been an hour and many decisions ago.

At the sound of a splashy thump the horse turned his head to look back. The expression in his eyes could be described only as longsuffering patience. One ear raised expectantly.

"Ouch... Mebbe a moment yet..."

* * *

><p>nahin (Hin.) - no<p> 


	11. Chapter 11

All things considered, Hispaniola was quite a pleasant island. It had plenty of merits, the greatest of them being a few hours of walking was enough to forget it's island. With a bit of luck one might not see the sea nor smell ports anymore.

Such were the thoughts of a certain man by the name of Savo, absentmindedly scratching a half-healed sore 'round his neck and gazing down a slope, at a woodland valley. For his eye it looked pretty promising: flat-bottomed, enclosed by a range of hills and elevated above the miles of swamps spreading beyond them. And it was uninhabited; the malarial marshes apparently discouraging settlers.

Yes, he decided, just get rid of this scrub and there would be place for a field of millet. One could have some decent beer at last, like in the old country, instead of that piss they have there.

After a year of exchanging wood, feathers and pelts for corn, the promising valley turned out too cold for millet.

Next year it turned out too dry for banana trees. The locals grew big white roots they called man-yok and these at least felt fine in Savo's valley, until there came a plague of fat worms.

On the third spring Savo throw his hoe among the miserable remains of gnawed stalks and sent memories of his tribe's tales on farming idyll to hell. The only thing that thrived and flourished on those damned isles were piracy, thievery and smuggling!

Henceforth, most growers of failed dreams spent the rest of their lives in the nearest tavern, as Savo did for a week. And then, he came to a conclusion.

In the course of the next years, the hut Savo had first raised had been replaced with a solid cabin, and soon complemented with three more. Two were supported on stakes a good yard above the ground, their insides spacious, with well-sealed thatches and drafty walls of thick logs. The last one was a stable housing a few box stalls, a small furnace and anvil.

Most of the goods changing owners – with or without their agreement – floated along the island's shores, loaded on anything floatable, from rowboats to heavy-bellied galleons and fluits. Still, some portion wandered the forest and mountain tracks on laboriously trudging carts and mules. And a portion of that portion not so much wandered as sneaked.

Sometimes one or another wanted to cower a few days, until the chase had lost his trail. Sometimes one or another needed to tend a limping donkey or his own damages, safe from suspicious eyes. Sometimes one wished to make a deal with another, safe from inquisitive ears. Sometimes this or that had to lie in a trusted place, safe from wrong – usually meaning royal – hands. These days and that place was for many worth enough to pay with a share of the profit and a currency less tangible, yet no less precious: secrecy and protection. As the years went by, the valley had become a place that many knew of, and yet kept silent, a prospective robber being obliged to take into account that revenge might reach dozens or even hundreds of miles, in the least expected moment, from the least expected hand.

xxx

Savo jumped down into the water and with a critical eye surveyed the sturdy logs overhanging the rivulet. Yesterday's downpour had weakened the banks and now the bed needed deepening or the next rain would submerge the path.

He took his shirt off and cast it onto grass. Then he heaved up a fallen plank. The end wedged into the bank had begun to rot. In a year it would need to be replaced with a new one, Savo decided, but for now propping it with a rock would have to do. He came out from under the footbridge and reached for a spade left on the bank, but something caught his eye. He straightened and shielded his eyes from the low afternoon sun. For a long while, he stared in disbelief, bursting into laughter at last.

"How did you come to be muddier than your mount, Captain?" he called.

"Move by the sea, you'll 'ave elegant visitors then," Jack Sparrow said dignifiedly. His mane had no less twigs and leaves tangled than the horse's.

"What, they began to use water for bathing instead of pig muck on Tortuga? Didn't think I'll live to see that…" Savo glanced sideways at the Captain's horse, stopped by the footbridge. A big distrustful eye glanced back.

"It's just the unique local colour." Jack dismissed all the world's pigs with a wave of his hand. Releasing the horse's mane to do so, however, turned out to be an unwise move. The horse didn't so much as look back at the thud on the ground. He did politely move his hoof, though.

Savo scratched his head. "Right, m'not asking how it came anymore." He stooped and reached a helpful hand. "Taking the business over Rusty Hans, Jack?" he chuckled. "Maybe you should think it over once more… What?" he asked, confused by a quick look the pirate threw him.

Jack adjusted his baldric and looked around in search of his hat. "Someone will take," he muttered. He rested a hand on the horse's back. "Will ya keep 'im for… some time?"

xxx

Savo remembered all too well the day in the port; he dreamt about it at times. They had walked a dusty road for many days, chained in threes, but even standing finally on a stony wharf, under a sun pouring heat like molten lead, he still felt the same dumb disbelief of the moment the iron had been locked around his neck. Not fear, not anger, but astonishment and numbness, detaching him like a foggy blanket from the stink of port alleys, slave-driver yells and mumbled prayers and sobs around.

"Load _what_?" A voice came as if from under water or the Earth's other end… or maybe from a dozen paces off. "Man, are you mad? This is not a slaver ship!"

"Now it is," the driver's chief cackled. "Move on. We haven't all day!"

It had been at that moment, when the daze began to dispel, and a young captain turned his head, his eyes open wide in shock. Grief woke somewhere deep inside and swelled slowly, rousing like a reptile from a murky slough, until – when they were stepping into the black depths of the hold – a rage seethed, so much that he wanted to kill. Not hunters, not drivers, but that captain. He wanted to grab his throat and squeeze the life out of him, but first to ask, to scream 'Why?!'

He began to understand days later, when on the open sea the hold's grates had opened with scrape of coarse wood and booming echoes. The sunlight poured in like a waterfall, and the shackles were removed and thrown overboard. Some things he could only guess, but he heard the crew's whispers trailing off at the sound of the captain's steps and the icy formal tone of every 'Yes sir'; noticed the dogged faces and askew gazes of the officers and two pistols the captain never parted with. He understood more, when they dropped the anchor in a small inlet and over a hundred men and women melted into the forest, running faster and faster, when they let themselves believe at last. Being last in line, Savo knew he was the only one who, once into the trees, stopped to look back. The sunlight shone on the hull's weathered planks and rolled up sails. Savo laid his eyes on the bird taking wings from the figurehead's outstretched hands, then turned and followed the others.

Finally, when he met that captain again, he understood there were many things of which he wouldn't venture to guess. There were more years in the once younger eyes, and more scars on the skin. Not all looked accidental, certainly not the one announcing him pirate to the world. However, with time Savo noticed the captain never tried to hide it, like others so marked. All scraps of memories twined around the wrists or needled in the skin with blue and black ink were always kept off that one scar. Oddly, it reminded Savo of the ship with the flying bird. That day's sun seemed to still persist in the captain's eyes and in the roguish flash of his teeth. It faded only once, one day when Savo asked about the ship. He didn't get an answer but Savo knew not to ask anymore. He never wished to feel as if he was looking into an open grave again.

Sometimes he thought the ship was nothing but a dream. Nevertheless, Savo was the only man Jack Sparrow never corrected, stressing 'Captain!' He didn't need to.

xxx

Whereas, Jack Sparrow was the only man who did not pay for a place and the lack of questions in the valley. Mostly that was why some time later Savo – perched on a rooftop mending the thatch – did not spare a second look at the passing pirate, a shovel on his shoulder and a bucket of tar in hand.

Jack climbed to the top of the highest hill and stopped in front of a huge old tree. Then he turned and walked five paces to a feeble, half-dead one. There he put the bucket down and stabbed the shovel into the ground.

It didn't require much digging, before the shovel scraped something that did not yield. Jack brushed earth away, revealing a square of tarred canvas. He cut the fabric with his dagger along three sides, pushed a creaking lid up, looked into the chest… and bent double in a violent coughing fit.

A long while later, wiping tears, he cautiously looked again. Well, he concluded, perhaps putting an open bottle on the bottom almost a year ago was not exactly his most brilliant idea. But what else one could do with turpentine? It's not as if one could always choose the swag. Anyway, the chest surely wasn't endangered by moths anymore. Or moles?

He held his breath, clenched his burning eyes tight and reached, hastily groping for the bottom corner. He barely avoided falling headfirst into the chest, but finally found the bottle and hurled it down the slope. Then he blinked and spat. The air at the hill top tasted acrid, but the early evening breeze began to dispel the fumes.

Having caught a deeper breath at last, Jack bent again over the chest and rummaged through its content. He took out a big glass inkwell with a chipped brim and put it aside. Then he produced a gold-plated pocket watch with a dented case, opened it and examined its scratched face lacking the hour hand. After a moment of hesitancy, he put it next to the inkwell and reached into the chest again. A somewhat old-fashioned corset missing a few fasteners and a pair of quite good female shoes were next. A hat… Jack polished a buckle on the front, blew at plumage wrapped around the black felt, hummed approvingly and put it to the other side.

An ivory-carved fan came next, its first leaf broken, followed by a bottle of ink, a bundle of red sealing wax sticks, a small empty decanter missing the plug and a big glass plug from other decanter… Ah, there it was. From under the pile of trifles Jack dragged out a bunch of sapphire-dyed cloth. He untangled it and raised to the light, the rows of golden buttons and braids gleaming on the Spanish Admiral's uniform coat. Jack put it on the green grass next to the hat. A moment later, a bright-scarlet waistcoat, a still almost white shirt with little frayed laces, and a long shawl of golden-coloured silk completed the outfit. For a while the pirate admired the overall, bringing to mind an explosion of a petard in a dyer's workshop. He tugged his beard thoughtfully. He knew there was no breeches in the chest; it wasn't worth to search. But maybe…

He looked inside once more. An ebony box with a Florentine inlaid cover, empty; a thick roll of geodetic maps of sugar plantations around Kingston; a broad Arabian dagger in a sheath of dyed maroquin; a big porcelain pharmaceutic spoon covered in Chinese inscriptions… Boots, high-legged cavalry jackboots of stiff black leather. Jack threw them next to the clothes and dived into the chest again, to fish out a pair of heavy silver with such grotesquely toothed wheels that the view itself would urge even the cold-blooded farm gelding into a panicked gallop. With a critical eye, the pirate measured the pile of bright splendour. Too little yet, he decided.

It was still a way to the bottom of the chest. A small stone mortar with no pestle; a very old and a bit twisted brass astrolabe; a fist-sized lump of amber with a scorpion peeping through its chipped side; a few sealed glass, alabaster and porcelain vials; a lady's satin cape with molting sable lining; an idol carved in a rhinoceros horn, leaving no room for doubt it was devoted to fertility; one female glove of white goatskin; leather-bind, published in Lübeck exercises of the classic Greek, scribbled on the margins with frivolous sketches and remarks in Italian; a heavy money-bag… Jack looked inside and pulled out three golden Louis d'ors. He put them into his pocket and threw the bag back to the chest. Next came a necklace of green feathers, turquoises and jaguar claws; a pair of silken stockings with one garter; a skull by shape of eagle's and size of cow's… and finally a long object, tightly wrapped in oiled linen. Jack put it on the ground and carefully unrolled the greasy yards of fabric, revealing two more long rolls.

One protected a black, silver-fitted sheath with a broad baldric attached. The other hid the cold shine of steel. Jack peeled the linen from the hilt and examined the sword, raising it to the last rays of setting sun. A Venetian _schiavona_ with a Toledo blade, its guard of outspread metal arches rivaling the gleam of the pirate's teeth, bared in a grin. Jack closely surveyed both sides from the hilt to the point. Satisfied to find not a spot of rust, he sheathed the sword and put it on the sapphire coat.

Perfect, he decided. If not for the damned turpentine… He glanced into the chest, then rummaged through the rubbish-heap of the removed contents. A small glass bottle, full of yellowish liquid. He tilted it, watching the Turkish rose oil lap inside and grinned again.

He put the bottle away, together with a sack made of sailcloth, the last thing he had taken from the chest. In his pocket he found a rolled strip of old fabric, measured it against the chest's edge and looked around in search of dry wood. The tar he had brought needed melting. He sniffed and sneezed. Safer to kindle the fire beyond the hilltop, he decided.

xxx

"When's Felipe settin' off?"

Savo, teetering atop a wobbly ladder, looked down at the pirate laden with the shovel, bucket, a bulging sack and a longish roll. He sniffed. Was it tar? "In three days," he said and blinked. Tar, but also… turpentine?

"Hincha?" Jack tilted his head questioningly.

"Uhum."

"How about tomorrow at dawn? To Port-au-Prince?"

Savo's brows lifted. He looked over the roof, toward a shed hidden almost mile away in the forest, sheltering a cart and two oxen. The only access to the valley was through narrow, barely visible footpaths, any load usually brought on mule or human backs. The first broader track began by the shed.

Nearly eight years ago, a little scrawny Mestizo boy had come to the valley. No one knew from where, wearing only half-burnt tatters of an oversized shirt and a haunted expression in his big eyes. Now Felipe looked about sixteen, knew Hispaniola's roads better than most people knew their own pockets, and had revealed an uncommon talent in bargaining, in spite of no one ever hearing him utter a word all these years. He had gone to lock the oxen for the night, Savo remembered.

"He'll manage to Hincha and back in a day." He passed over all the other obvious things, like 'and he'll find anything we need there.' A silent 'So?' hovered in the air.

"So you're not interested in a hundred livres for a crate of cigars?"

Savo did not ask how Jack knew about the cigars hidden under the main cabin's floor. "Why suddenly a hundred?"

"_Lucecita_'s tree weeks late already. Neither had she reached Jamaica. There's word of storms off the Caymans."

"Hmmpf…" Savo frowned. _Lucecita_, cruising every half year between Havana, Port-au-Prince and Santo Domingo, soaked with tobacco scent from her bilges up to the mast tops, and bearing officially the noble name of _Santa Lucia_, always waded through waves with the grace of a sea cow. Mockers claimed she came from the old Noah's shipyard and served once as a dinghy to the Ark. Still, three weeks was a reason for concern, even in her case. And among merchants, concern could be a very lucrative thing. The French exchange must be seething now. A week more and a hundred and twenty livres a crate for many would be more cost-effective than every next day in the port.

"Once she comes, they'll knock down to seventy or lower, for the delay," he murmured. He sniffed suspiciously and coughed.

"_If_ she comes," Jack shrugged and dropped the shovel. "Come on," he said bending down, "who in Hincha has even as much as fifty at once?"

"The Prior. And he pays in pesos."

"An' you'll be bringin' him a crate every quarter?" Jack waved with the shovel dismissively. "The _padre_ gets cigars from his own lambs, in thanks for _Pater noster_. But rumour has it he likes to indulge in good Burgundy. Pity he hardly ever gets an opportunity, since 'is lambs rarely venture the French coast." The pirate winked with a smirk.

"Hmmpf…" Savo grimaced, though mostly on principle. Seventy livres sounded more pleasant than fifty pesos, especially if some of the said livres could come back in the form of full bottles, with the prospect of the changing for pesos. Anyway, the crates of cigars were waiting – and losing fragrance! – for a good two months.

"Right." He made a decision. "But you'll see to the wine personally! They can fob last year's slop off on Felipe…"

Jack opened his eyes wide in a scenic indignation. "And why d'ya think I wanna go at all?"

Savo said nothing, but the irony in his eyes could serve as ship ballast.

Jack snorted and rolled his eyes. "Ten bottles for me. And a cigar for each one."

"Deal!" Savo beamed, then coughed again and rubbed his watering eyes.

Jack sent him a slightly offended gaze. "Looks like I should've started from twenty."

Savo blinked and coughed more violently. "Captain, I'll add the eleventh and a cigar, and won't even ask if that hyyy…! hill of yours won't blow up someday. Just get lost, will hyyy…! you? To some draughty place, if you please…"

Jack flashed his teeth in a foxy smirk. "It won't. Still, you can kindly warn some that ghouls wander around here, smelly an' hungry ones. Such noseys who dig in ground are most for their likin'. After dinner they lick their claws clean, then have a nice swig of turpentine and drop emptied bottles. If one trips on one, he's lost."

"And they can't take three steps in a line, but jangle at each one taken?" Savo nodded. "Might've seen one. Sure, I'll be warning. I'd never put decent people to such meeting…" He waved farewell to the pirate disappearing around a corner and went back to stuffing palm leaves over the eaves.

A moment later his head jerked up. The eastern warehouse! The five bales of muslin! Shaggy Barnabe was going to came back for them the day after tomorrow. The damned cotton greedily absorbed even the smell of wood it rested on.

"Jack!" Savo yelled and fell off the ladder.


End file.
